Book Two, the New Frontiers Series

NFI: New Frontiers, Inc.

By Jack L Knapp

COPYRIGHT

 

NFI: New Frontiers, Inc.

Book Two, The New Frontiers Series

 

Copyright © 2016, renewed 2023, by Jack L Knapp

Cover by Blair Howard

 

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.

Disclaimer: The persons and events depicted in this novel were created by the author’s imagination; no resemblance to actual persons or events is intended.

Product names, brands, and other trademarks referred to within this book are the property of the respective trademark holders. Unless otherwise specified, no association between the author and any trademark holder is expressed or implied. Nor does the use of such trademarks indicate an endorsement of the products, trademarks, or trademark holders unless so stated. Use of a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark, registered trademark, or service mark.

 

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For Blair Howard

Critic, Confidant, Friend

 

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

NEO, Chapter One

NEO, Chapter Two

NEO, Chapter Three

 

 

Prologue

The Sneyd-Tesla impeller was invented by Morton "Morty" Sneyd and his grandson Chuck, who based their work on an idea found in a Nikola Tesla journal. The device was subsequently sold to a company run by investor and CEO T. French "Frenchy" Fuqua. The company, known as New Frontiers, Incorporated (NFI), provided the money to develop Morty’s invention.

A group of industrialists realizes the device is a threat to their business model. Led by Sol Goldman, they attempt to prevent NFI from developing the impeller drive. Some of their efforts involve financial pressure, but some are more direct; Sol hires a criminal and orders him to stop NFI any way he can. The man rapes Lina, Frenchy’s daughter, in order to send a message, then later attempts to burn the factory. Chuck, a former Marine, responds by killing the arsonists.

Governments also become involved. The US Government’s DARPA wants to buy the drive system, Russians attempt to steal it, but despite their worst efforts, development continues; a tramp ship and an airplane are modified to use the impeller system, and a first-generation spaceship, SS Farside, is built.

Regulatory agencies, spurred by Congressional pressure, move in and shut down NFI’s factory. While this is underway, Russian agents attempt to seize the ship by a coup de main. The crippled Farside escapes, taking with it most of NFI’s portable assets, including a supply of completed impellers. A huge cavern on Morty’s ranch provides concealment where the necessary repairs are completed.

Factories in Mexico build frames for the lifters that DARPA wants. Chuck’s team of engineers and mechanics install the impellers, and to preserve the drive’s secret, NFI field engineers operate and maintain the lifters for the duration of the contract. The income from this contract finances further development.

The shut-down by the US Government forces NFI to diversify its operations. A Finnish company now produces completed hulls for new ships, bare units that are spaceworthy, but without the impeller drive system. The hulls are then shipped to Iceland for final preparation and installation of the flight control computers and impellers. Some flights are launched from Iceland, others from Finland. A lot of money is involved, and other nations hope NFI will base future operations there. Larger nations such as Russia, China, and the US remain a threat; the company avoids their airspace.

Frenchy hopes that distributing the company’s operations around the world will avoid further trouble. He’s willing to purchase components from the world’s major nations, but refuses to base ships within their borders. A Chinese company produces components for NFI’s automated orbital refueling stations, US companies assemble them. The refueling stations are shipped to Germany for final preparation and NFI spaceships launch them into orbit. The first three refueling stations are now operational, and more are planned.

NFI also establishes branch offices in each country that has significant economic ties to the company; the company’s official headquarters is now located in Switzerland. The headquarters is an administrative and communications center as well as the official headquarters, which reduces taxes as well as preventing regulators from acquiring the drive system or shutting down the company. Most operations are done elsewhere.

SS Gypsy, one of the new and much larger ships, is now ready to haul spent nuclear fuel into space. The company intends to finance future growth in this way.

Japan, the first country to contract with NFI, vitrifies the active nuclear material by mixing it with silica, then fusing it into glass. The process is costly, but necessary for safe handling of the still-radioactive fuel rods. The first cargo is ready, and the Japanese will provide ground handling equipment and personnel to help load it. Gypsy will transport the vitrified nuclear waste beyond Lunar orbit and launch it toward the sun, where it will eventually be destroyed.

The MV Tesla is no longer under the physical control of NFI. It’s quietly hauling cargo around the Atlantic, hoping not to be noticed while accumulating user data.

Such is the situation as our story opens.

 

Chapter One

T. French Fuqua, CEO of New Frontiers, Incorporated, washed his hands, then studied himself in the full-length mirror.

Today he’d worn a charcoal three-piece suit to the office. The coat was hanging in the closet, allowing Frenchy to examine his appearance. Vest over white shirt, striped tie, medium-weight wool trousers, European styling. His hair had turned silvery-gray, and there was a pronounced widow’s peak in front, harbinger of eventual baldness. No surprise; his father had been almost totally bald by age sixty!

Frenchy sighed; he was pushing sixty himself, and the job’s stress had changed him. He was a man of medium height, no longer slender, and his new wrinkles reflected the stress of his job—had he gained another couple of pounds? Frenchy resolved to cut back on food and find more time for exercise.

But time was always in short supply. Too many of the world’s powerful insisted on speaking directly to NFI’s boss, and despite Frenchy's misgivings the office reflected his status. The carpet was deep pile, the paintings originals by local artists, comfortable overstuffed leather chairs were arranged to encourage informal conversation, and Frenchy sat behind an oversized antique desk in a comfortable leather office chair. The receptionist and secretary in the outer office provided subtle emphasis reflecting the importance of the company and its CEO.

Occasionally he found himself wondering what impulse had caused him to speak to Morty Sneyd in the first place. He hadn’t needed the money; his net worth at the time had been north of a billion dollars, but something about Morty’s story had piqued his interest. Perhaps it was the challenge, a chance to show up Sol Goldman, or maybe it had been the lure of the gamble, of the enormous payoff if he succeeded but bankruptcy if he failed. Or maybe it was the chance to prove that he was as much a businessman as any of the others he knew.

Well, he’d done that, in spades!

The impulse had cost him, at least at first. His fortune had begun to melt away, his investments tied up in one struggling company that had yet to make a profit. He’d set up an annuity for his daughter Lina, enough to care for her and the children she would likely bear, but he’d risked everything else and had indeed come perilously close to bankruptcy. Close enough that American financial institutions had refused to extend the company credit, but then had come the fortuitous event that turned things around; DARPA was interested in Morty’s discovery, and the agency had very deep pockets. Money had trickled in, and soon he’d found that Asian and European banks were more willing than American banks had been. An initial visit to Deutsche Bank had led to a demonstration, where the bank representative had flown in the modified impeller-powered airplane. DB had cautiously agreed to a loan, and other lenders had followed. The video showing operating lifters had captured their interest, and revealing that NFI had an operating spacecraft was the icing on the cake. Banks would have preferred direct participation, but they had settled for loaning NFI the funds the company needed to expand.

Frenchy sat down behind the desk, then picked up one of the seemingly-endless reports from the waiting stack. The antique desk was huge, but even so, it was always cluttered. He needed to delegate more, that was clear; if only he could find able, trustworthy people!

Adelheid Laaksonen, Frenchy’s executive secretary, interrupted his musings with a call. She was a trim woman of a certain age, gray haired, but with fewer wrinkles than Frenchy. Perhaps it was due to the Finnish lifestyle. Finns exercised more, so comparatively few residents of Rovaniemi were overweight. They also enjoyed an efficient government, a successful economy, and a social safety net. Adelheid’s few wrinkles were at the corner of her eyes, indicating she smiled often. "Frenchy, Chuck’s on Skype for you. You’ve got half an hour before your next appointment. Do you have time to talk to him?"

"Sure, put him on." Frenchy tapped the icon and brought Chuck up on the screen. The problem with having a son-in-law for a business partner was that Frenchy never knew why he was calling. "How’s Lina? Not bad news, is it?"

"No. Other than the fact that we don’t see nearly enough of you, it’s actually good news. We completed the latest DARPA contract and they’ve released the rest of our money. They’re really impressed with the lifters! I don’t think they ever really believed they worked the way we said, so they insisted on testing them to destruction, planned crashes, water landings, the works. The last was one of the big cargo lifters, the ‘flying trucks’. They insisted on flying it under remote control, and they wanted to take it high enough to clear buildings."

"What happened?"

"Sideslip, the same thing that killed Mel. The instruments sent false data, the flight computer couldn’t recover in time, and in fact, this crash was worse than the one that wrecked the Bedstead. We had to torch the frame to get the impellers off! We recovered the impellers from all the crashed units, by the way. That last flight also exceeded our recommended max load, which is probably what caused the sideslip. If the cargo isn’t perfectly balanced, you’re going to get problems as you approach max-gross. Control gets mushy, and whatever the computer tries to do just makes the problem worse. Anyway, the contract’s finished. I’m sure they still want lifters, so what do you want to do? Offer to sell, or try to hang on to our monopoly? Do we know how long the banks will wait?"

"They’re being patient," Frenchy said. "I showed them the Japanese contract, and that convinced them. They’d really like to underwrite an IPO, but I have no intention of converting to a public stock company! The bridge loans will keep us going, and I project that we’ll be completely out of debt in a year, maybe less. From then on, everything will be self-funded."

"Frenchy, we owe them, in a sense. They kept us going, and it cost them. Congress cut their budget."

"Yes, and no. They wanted to see what our lifters could do, we needed the money and their political influence. It didn’t matter in the end, we still got shut down, so I think I’m done with the US Government. If you don’t want to see DARPA left out in the cold, suggest this: impellers are better, but there’s another way. Tell DARPA that using fans instead of impellers for their lifters will also work. If the fans are powerful enough, the lifters won’t even need skirts to contain the ground pressure effect."

Chuck nodded. "I’ll do that, Frenchy. By the way, we’re going to want lifters in space, something like a modified version of the California King with an enclosed cockpit. Think of it as a space-to-space shuttle for shifting cargo, because eventually our ships will be far larger. There’s a real chance they’ll eventually be too large to land on Earth, so we’ll need a method of transferring payloads in space and that’s where the space transporters come in. It would be worth it to park a few on each ship, then use them the same way that seagoing ships use small boats. We’ll definitely need them on the moon."

"That’s on my mind," Frenchy said, "putting a base on the moon, and I want to get started as soon as we can afford it. But right now, most of our income will go toward servicing our debts and buying more ships. You’re probably right about owing the Defense Department; if they needed lifters bad enough, I suppose we could hand over the ones we were using in space."

"Frenchy, sooner or later, they’ll invent their own impellers. Think Manhattan Project, except this time they’ll be after the impeller drive. It’s only a matter of putting enough people to work on it, now that they know it’s possible. At some point, I think we should offer to sell completed systems, lifters, converted airplanes, and spacecraft. The ships, the flight control system, we will have spent time and money on research and working out the bugs, so I think they’d be happy to buy from us. We could easily underbid any of the aerospace companies, because we’ve already invested the money. They would have to include research and development costs, which means we could underbid them and still recover our R&D investment."

Frenchy nodded. "That’s always the threat, isn’t it? Knowing it’s possible, that’s most of the battle right there. Given enough incentive, they’ll look until they find it. By incentive I mean financial, of course. If governments are willing to invest instead of leasing or buying our technology, they’ll figure out how the impeller drive works." He looked down at his desk for a moment. "It just points up what we always knew, Chuck, we have to make money while we can. By reinvesting everything into the company, we’ve bought time to protect ourselves. NFI is in so many nations now, we’re so diversified that we can’t be shut down. It’s the same with money, some of our accounts are in dollars, but the rest is in rubles, yuan, pounds, and euros. No nation, not even an alliance, can freeze all of our bank accounts. We’ve got the solid head start we wanted.

"Even with government backing, I don’t see anyone catching up in less than ten years. By then, while they’re taking the first trips to space, we’ll have orbital refueling stations, maybe even a base on the moon. That’s the ladder to space, Chuck, to Mars, the asteroids, the giant moons. Maybe even to terraforming Venus! If that succeeds, when it succeeds, we’ll own our own planet." Frenchy’s tone was emphatic.

"Frenchy, forcing us to shut down our plant scared you, didn’t it?"

"Damned right! I had to really scramble to get the lifters for the DARPA contract. In fact, I was lucky to get the frames on credit. The Mexicans knew who I was, so they were willing to take a chance, and we already had the other components stored at—ah, Aladdinsville."

Aladdinsville was the conversational name for the huge cavern on Chuck’s ranch.

"I know what you mean," Chuck agreed. "Anyway, Farside is as good as new now. What say I make a few of those Japanese cargo flights?"

Frenchy was silent, thinking. "No, I’ve got Gypsy for that. We’ll have Wanderer operational within the month and more coming after that. The Finns promise to deliver a new hull every couple of months, as long as the money keeps coming. The current contract is for eighteen ships and it’s open-ended, so we can add more if we need them. The income from the Japanese fuel rod transfers is enough to pay for them and start paying down the loans. The contract is expensive, but the Japanese can’t afford to cancel it. That meltdown scared them!

"As for NFI, the impeller assembly line is working too. We’re buying components from around the world, then assembling them in our own shops and I keep a very close eye on those. We’re still in debt, but I think we’re finally over the hump. We’ve got enough ships to transport the canisters as fast as the Japanese can convert fuel rods, which takes them about two weeks. It takes the Finns two months to build a hull, another month for us to install the flight controls and impellers and take it on a shakedown cruise. Three months, start to finish, to produce a completed ship of the Farside class. Gypsy's bigger, so it takes longer but I don't have enough data yet to say exactly how long.

"Thirteen weeks, about, and unless the Japanese screw up, we can count on making at least six canister flights during that time. Bottom line, I don’t need Farside right now, the only holdup is Japan, so I’d rather keep you to back up flights. We haven’t flown enough hours to work out all the bugs, and picking up the cargoes on time is critical. It’s an assembly line, but only so long as all the parts work together. If Gypsy is not available, Farside will take her place; she’s the flexibility built into the system. Later on, I’ll use Farside and one of the ships that’s in the pipeline to service the French contract. Tell you what, Chuck, go ahead and give your bird a shakedown cruise. You need to make sure the repairs are holding. After that, keep her available until she’s needed. What say I meet you at Aladdinsville in a few days? It will take me a while to finish negotiating with the French, then I’m scheduled to talk to Germany. They’re considering a similar contract. When I’m done, I’ll give you a call."

Chuck nodded.

"Lina OK?" Frenchy asked.

"Doing well, Frenchy. No more space flights for her, maybe not for the next few years. Two babies will nail her feet to the ground! I can’t tell if she’s happy at the prospect of twins. I know she regrets missing the early flights."

"Well, it won’t be long," Frenchy said, and I’m sure she’ll love the motherhood experience. I’m not sure about being a grandfather, though!"

"Morty did it, though not with twins. You can too, Grampa."

"She’s due in twelve weeks, right?"

"Right, everything’s going well. She’ll be all right, Frenchy."

"That’s good, just keep me advised. But I need to get back to work, Chuck. I’ll call you when I get back to the states."

The connection ended and Frenchy sighed.

Two visitors had arrived at the office while he was talking to Chuck. The parade never slowed!

***

"Vacation’s over, gang. I’m taking Farside out for a shakedown cruise. There’s no reason to keep her here, so we won’t be coming back. Will, you want left seat?"

"You take it, Chuck. What have you got in mind?"

"Fly to orbit, then tank up at one of the refueling stations. We should do a trial run to the moon."

"I doubt there’ll be any problems with refueling. The fill tubes are flexible and independently steerable from the control panel, so all you need to do is take your time joining up. The radio beacon and docking lights will help too."

"You’re probably right, but until we try it we can’t be absolutely sure. The stations are easy to reach, the whole thing should be almost foolproof. We don’t have fools flying our ships, but even so I’ll be happier if I give it a try myself. We should take some of the maintenance people with us if they're willing. Farside will be based in Iceland or Finland from now on."

"Tell me about the bases."

"They’re absolutely necessary, not just for hangar space between flights, but for maintenance. We’re still working out the schedule, but so far, we expect to replace door and hatch seals every hundred hours. The rubber compound dries out and begins to flake, so the only way to prevent leaks is to replace them before they fail. Each hatch has an inner seal and an outer seal, but even so, after a hundred flight hours we start losing atmosphere. The leaks are slow, but we can’t afford to have them get larger."

Will nodded and waited for Chuck to continue.

"We’re following a modified version of what airlines do," Chuck said, "inspect after every flight, do preventive maintenance according to a set schedule, and every two years do a complete teardown and rebuild. Space flight is even more demanding than atmospheric flight, so proactive is better than reactive. The impellers are reliable, but even so there’s no reason to take chances; we intend to replace them every six months and old impellers go into the shop for teardown and detailed inspection. Any worn parts will be replaced. We expect bearings to fail, so they’ll be replaced automatically during every inspection, whether they need it or not. Rebuilt impellers are as good as new, so they’ll go into the maintenance pipeline. The batteries get similar treatment, except that we send them back to the manufacturer for inspection and recertification. Anyway, that means we need shops, which means bases."

***

Two men decided to fly with Chuck and Will, the others begged off. They helped load the rubber water bladder, so the task was soon finished. The pool that had filled the bottom of the cavern’s sinkhole was almost empty; the water had been filtered and used as raw material for the orbital refueling stations. The immense photovoltaic wings provided the needed power; electrolysis split the water molecules, and the hydrogen and oxygen were compressed and stored until needed.

"Board in fifteen minutes, suits on. You can leave your helmets racked."

"I’ll keep my fishbowl on, Chuck. One of us should be fully suited until we reach orbit. I’ll take it off when we get there. If something’s going to break, it will have done it by then," Will said.

"Good idea. I’ll warm up the fuel cells and start checkout while you get suited up." Chuck kept his pressure suit in a locker at the back of the crew cabin. He would change while waiting for the fuel cells to come online.

The cavern had been formed by the same chemistry that produced the nearby Carlsbad Caverns. Seeping water dissolved the limestone, leaving an underground void that extended for miles. Part of the roof had then collapsed, leaving a giant sinkhole; similar events had formed the nearby Bottomless Lakes State Park. Chuck fulfilled a childhood dream by rappelling down the sinkhole’s sides, then briefly exploring the cave. He noticed that there were few stalactites and stalagmites, meaning this cavern was probably younger than the Carlsbad Caverns when the roof collapsed.

There had since been changes. The cavern now had an electrical system, using power drawn from the photovoltaic plant near the old ranch house. The California King, the company’s sole remaining lifter after Mel’s crash, had simplified the task of converting the cave into a workshop and factory. Lights had been installed, the cavern floor leveled. Metal buildings were erected on the new foundation, including a bunkhouse and a storage building that currently held NFI’s stock of completed impellers. The new factory and shop were sufficient to maintain Farside, as well as manufacture new impellers.

Half an hour later, hatches sealed and indicator lights glowing green, Chuck lifted Farside to a low hover. Easing the ship ahead until he reached the sinkhole, he added power as soon as he cleared the cavern’s roof. The ship rose, elevator-like, to the surface.

"Radar on." Chuck gave the command as soon as the nose cleared the surface. Will pushed the buttons, then monitored the display as the unit came online. Continuing his slow rise, Chuck slowly revolved the ship while watching the display. The only return came from the distant mountains.

The flight control computers seamlessly translated his commands; when the ship’s up-angle reached sixty degrees, Chuck fed in power and the big craft climbed rapidly. "We’ll stay subsonic through angels 60," he explained. "It takes a little longer to reach the stratosphere, but we don’t want to spook the neighbors. There’s no reason to make people curious. They might decide to take a look at the cave, and we don’t want that to happen."

"Agreed." Will reported the indications from his instruments. "Your course is east, speed 500 knots, now passing through 36,000 feet. Fuel cell output is nominal, impellers at 43% of max thrust, hakuna matata."

"Say what?"

"No worries, Chuck. What are they teaching you guys in school now?"

"Not that!"

"Impellers are at 75%," Will reported. "Cabin pressure remains nominal. Five minutes from orbit, prepare for weightlessness."

The two crewmen responded with "Got it" and "I understand". Chuck smiled. No standard pilot’s jargon for them!

"I show us on course, ready to enter orbit. Reduce power—now," continued Will.

"Impellers at 5%, Will, maintaining altitude. Refueling station coming up in thirty minutes. I’m using the impellers to keep us down in a lower orbit, meaning we’re overtaking the station. I intend to engage the docking program as soon as the station is in sight. I’ll refuel first, then top off the station’s water supply."

***

Forty-six minutes later, Chuck disengaged the transfer probes.

"Any comments, Will?"

"Nope, that went so slick it’s scary!"

"I show us at 100% fuel," Chuck said thoughtfully. "You know, we’ve got enough to orbit the moon and return without another refueling stop. In fact, I'm thinking we might do a touch-and-go on the surface."

"You sure, Chuck?"

"Why not? How about you guys, want a sightseeing tour?"

"Sure!" followed by, "Touch and go on the moon?"

There’s always a doubter, thought Chuck. He rotated the ship and lifted the nose, gradually adding power. Acceleration pushed him into the seat as the impellers spun up. On course, he gradually reduced the thrust, holding it at one gee acceleration. He glanced at Will and got a nod of encouragement.

"You’ll need to watch your fuel consumption," Will reminded him. "You should also file a report through the communications satellite. Old pilots and bold pilots, you know how that goes. I vote for letting our guys at Aladdinsville know where we’re going. Maybe Frenchy can send a rescue party if we need one. You’re sure you want to try a grounding?"

"Okay, no landing. I’ll call in the report, you take the stick."

"I’ve got the controls."

The moon’s image grew larger. The ship’s velocity continued to increase; the cratered disk filled the screen, then became too large for the display. Chuck tweaked Farside’s course, watching the image slide away to starboard. "One loop, maybe two, then we head for the barn. And you were right about the touch and go. Fuel would be too low to land without a refill, and the orbital tank needs time to recharge the hydrogen tank."

"You’re doing a slingshot?" asked Will.

"Right, that way we’ll hold our speed for the return. I’ve got fuel for several orbital changes, but I don’t want to cut it too fine."

"Watch your acceleration, then. You might want to dial it back now, otherwise your slingshot will send us where we’re not ready to go."

"Go around in free fall, you think?"

"That’s what the Apollos did, but then they didn’t have impellers or enough fuel to do anything else. You’ll have to fly the approach manually, there’s no program in the computer."

"I’ll fix that before we try this again. Dialing power back, prepare for microgravity."

The moon was visible through the side viewports. Will adjusted the starboard wing camera and let it pan across the surface. "Altitude, Chuck?"

"I’m watching it, Will. We’re not in orbit, I’m using the impellers to hold this altitude, meaning we’ll spiral in during the second half of the loop. I’ll boost speed as we come around and that should slingshot us for home. I’ll file a follow-up report as soon as we’re on our way."

"Agreed." Will aimed the port camera and the camera on the vertical stabilizer toward the surface, then pushed the record button. "I think we’ll get some good photos. They’ll help when it’s time to pick a base location."

"We’ll have to do a walkabout first."

"Sure, but the photo record is where it starts. You don’t want to set your base in a crater!"

"I’m not sure about that," said Chuck. "One of the earlier surveys reported water ice in those craters. If it did come from comet strikes, the ice might still be there, under the craters. Some of them, anyway."

"You think? Maybe so, but we’ll need some kind of digging machine. Moon gravity is too light, the Apollo guys just bounced around; even chipping rocks, they came off the ground. We’ll need a backhoe, maybe a dozer. You know those spent fuel rods we’ll be hauling?" said Will.

"Right, first for the Japanese, then the French, probably the Germans too. Eventually, maybe even the USA. We’ll have customers."

"The first cargoes won’t be usable, Will. The nuclear fuel will be distributed through glass in the canister, so they won’t produce enough heat. But the ones still in the cooling pools, well—we should be ashamed to charge people for those. We want those spent fuel rods, if they can handle them without too much glass in the mix. I would even haul them free."

"You’re going to dump them on the moon? Chuck, we’ll catch hell from the UN, and the rest of the nuclear-capable nations won’t like it either; they might cancel our contracts. Sure, we save on fuel costs, as opposed to launching from beyond the moon’s gravity well, but—"

"Not going to dump them at all, Will. You know they’re hot, right?"

"Sure, they put them in pools to contain the radioactivity."

"That’s not what I mean. I mean they’re ‘spent’ only because they no longer have enough power to operate the generating plants efficiently, but they’re still hot when they’re pulled from the reactors. Literally hot, in the thermal sense. The water keeps them cool as well as containing the radioactivity."

"Okay, but we don’t have water to spare. You’re suggesting we might find some on the moon, but that’s a maybe at best and right now, we don’t have any."

"Nope, no water. What we do have on the moon is room, all the room we want."

"So—Chuck, you’re going somewhere with this. What are you talking about?"

"I want to bring up a trencher, maybe a backhoe too, battery powered and track-mounted. The batteries will add weight to the machine, and on the moon we need all the weight we can get! Other than that, it will be like any other ditch-digger. I’m thinking we should dig a pair of long trenches with shorter ones between the long ones, then lay in pipes and connect them so that they make a single long loop. Once the plumbing is finished, cover the pipes with a layer of crushed rock or dust, but don’t completely fill the trenches. Final step, lay the fuel rods on top of the fill material, enough to keep them level, then add another layer of rock on top so the heat stays in the trenches. Pump a fluid through the pipes to collect the heat, then use it to generate electricity by using a Stirling Cycle engine connected to a generator. There are submarines, really quiet ones, that use this system now. But not with spent fuel rods, of course, they probably use some kind of conventionally-fired boiler to heat the working fluid."

"You sure that will work?"

"Absolutely! Even if it doesn’t work, we’re no worse off; we just launch the fuel rods toward the sun like we planned. But I’m sure this will work. We’ll need to pump the heat-collecting fluid through a heat exchanger to keep radioactivity from contaminating the generator fluid. That will have to be inside a shelter to reduce any radioactivity, but then transfer the heat to a second loop to generate electrical power, and some of the electricity will drive the pumps to circulate the fluids. But the rest is free power for Moonbase. I figure the spent rods will stay hot enough for five, maybe ten years, and by then we’ll be ready to replace the oldest ones. Once the system starts, it will run continuously and electricity will be available all the time, not just when the sun’s up. After we build the system, it’s all free. That’s why I say we should consider paying for the spent rods."

"No way! If they’re willing to pay us, let them. Those rods are a negative asset on the ground, they’re only worth something after we deliver them on the moon. We’re the only ones who can do that safely, so we charge for the service. Why don’t we set up a meeting with Frenchy? He’s got a conference in Germany later this week, but he’ll be home after that. I like the idea, but Frenchy’s the boss, so let’s see what he thinks."

 

Chapter Two

Chuck parked Farside outside Reykjavik in an empty NFI hangar, switched off main power, then locked the board.

After the Russian hijack attempt, a number of security enhancements had been made to the ship. In addition to titanium cladding around the high-security lock, smaller titanium pins had been fitted loosely into holes around the cylinder. These were free to rotate, preventing removal of the cylinder by sawing. A cutting torch would have no better luck; the ship's switches and wiring would melt first, effectively breaking the link between the flight control system and the rest of the ship.

Will and Chuck then went their separate ways. Will caught a flight to Finland, where he would meet Wolfgang Albrecht. Gypsy waited there, ready to make her first commercial flight to space. Wolfgang would command and Will would serve as copilot; he would also evaluate Wolfgang’s performance, deciding whether he was ready to command Gypsy. Two on-board crewmen/mechanics completed the crew.

Will and Wolfgang had agreed on a rough flight plan. Wolfgang would fly Gypsy to orbit, top off her tanks, then land near Fukushima to pick up a canister of vitrified high-level nuclear waste. Japanese workers would load the canister and Gypsy’s crewmen would then secure it in the cargo bay, using built-in electromechanical clamps. Pausing in orbit long enough to top off his tanks, Wolfgang would boost Gypsy’s speed to escape velocity, then launch the container on its long trip to the sun. Detailed planning would take place after they got the latest weather briefing.

Chuck caught a ride into Reykjavik and ate supper, then checked into the company’s leased hotel suite. He placed a call to Lina before settling in for the night. Chuck missed his wife, and a phone call was better than nothing.

There was another reason for making the call; Chuck wanted her to relocate to Australia. She would be safer there, but she had friends in New Mexico and Texas. Could she adjust to living in a strange country? And how would emigrating affect the as-yet-unborn twins? Lina was hesitant, still unwilling to decide when they ended the call.

Chuck found Frenchy at the company’s Reykjavik office the following morning. He spent the first half hour explaining his idea for using the ‘depleted’ fuel rods, then mentioned the difficulties involved in transporting the cargo.

"We need a second-generation ship, Frenchy. Farside or Gypsy won’t do, not without major modifications. We’d do better refitting them with extra fuel and oxygen tanks. In-flight refueling would be more efficient than stopping at one of the orbital stations."

"An interesting idea," said Frenchy. "But we can talk about it later. Why a second-generation ship, Chuck?"

"Farside-class ships can’t haul unconverted fuel rods. If they’re melted together with silica, we can transport them, but we can’t use them. We need a way to carry lightly-vitrified or possibly even unprotected rods, straight from the cooling pool. That means a different kind of cargo bay, one with thicker shielding to protect the crew and a better way to hold the rods. That means a larger bay that has enough room for the shields. More fuel rods means a lot more mass, so we’ll need stiffer walls around the cargo bay, adding to the weight. More mass also means more fuel cells and additional impellers, more powerful ones. The new ships will also need insulation between the fuel rods to keep them from interacting with each other. If the rods get close to each other, there’s enough active nuclear material to speed up the reactions, increasing the heat and radioactivity. They might even melt down. The Japanese can help you design the unit, because it’s to their advantage if we can haul more rods each trip. Transport would also go faster if we didn’t have to wait for them to vitrify the material. Even if we kept the cost of a single flight the same, we wouldn’t need as many trips. We’ll still send them off to the sun eventually, but only after we’ve got as much use out of them as possible."

"It sounds feasible. Let me run it through engineering and I’ll get back to you. What’s next on your agenda?"

"I need a copilot, and so will Wolfgang. Will’s off to Lapland right now, flying right seat on Gypsy, but we can’t afford to keep using him as a check pilot. He should be in charge of flight operations."

"I’ll find copilots, in fact Martha probably has several ready by now. You’ll be flying formation in Farside as escort, right?"

"Right, I’ll be off Wolfgang’s wing until he passes the moon. From that point on, all he has to do is continue until he reaches escape velocity, then dump the canister. I’ll have time to finish the aerial surveys before he’s back inside Luna’s orbit."

Chuck switched topics. "I figure we’ll need a large, flat area for the power system, a thousand acres if possible. The fuel-rod trenches will need a lot of room, and the rest of the base has to be far enough away that there’s no increase in radiation. If I see anything like that, I’ll get detailed photos."

"Sounds good. But if anything goes wrong with one of the transport ships, you’re Gypsy’s backup, and Grasshopper is yours if Farside isn’t available. I’ll look into your scheme, see what our civil engineers think. Too bad you can’t haul even one bare fuel rod in the current cargo bays."

"It might be possible with enough shielding, but only one! Unconverted rods are heavy to start with, and they’re shipped dirtside in water-jacketed bottles. The flasks alone weigh around fifty tons."

"You’re right, that’s too much mass. I’ll get you your second-generation ships. Where do you want to base them?"

"Rovaniemi. It’s right on the Arctic circle, cold in the winter but no colder than space, and the factory that’s building our new ships is only ten kilometers away. We can deal with the cold. It’s pleasant in the summer and the Finns are friendly people. Another advantage, the area is almost deserted. There’s a wilderness south of our lease, and the Finns are serious about keeping it wild. I doubt we’ll see any unexpected visitors."

"It’s beautiful up there, that’s for sure," Frenchy agreed. "I like the place, and not just because they have heavy industry. They make cell phones, they’ve got a weapons industry, they even build cruise ships. They’re serious about their health too, although they’re mad."

"Mad?"

"Yeah. I haven’t tried it, but they work up a good sweat in the sauna, then jump out and run around in the snow while whacking each other with branches. Madness!"

"Have you tried it, Frenchy?"

"Chuck, why don’t you get me a list of people who are flight-qualified? I’ll pick the best one and make him flight examiner."

"About that sauna, Frenchy—"

"On your way, Chuck."

***

"Let’s look at your detailed flight plan, Wolfgang," Will said.

"I’ll put it on the screen. I’ve got a hard copy, but it’s just in case it’s needed for backup."

"The screen’s fine. Okay, on the first leg you’re heading north over the pole?"

"Yes. I’m hauling a bladder of water to refill the tanks on Stations Two and Three. Station One can handle four or five more refuelings before the tank goes dry. I’ll refill it on the next trip, or Chuck may get to it before then."

"What about here?" Will pointed to the landmass east of Finland.

"Right, I’ll stay well clear of there. That’s Russian airspace. I’ll pass here, west of Russia and north of Sweden. In any case, we’ll be well above the operational altitude of Russian antiaircraft batteries by the time I exit Finnish air space. I’ll enter orbit here," pointing to the screen, "below and behind Station Three. I’ll fill its tank, then slow down and catch Station Two on the next orbit. I’ll transfer the rest of the water there and head south. I’ll reenter atmosphere over the Pacific and approach Japan north of Tokyo. The landing beacon is here," pointing to a location to the east, "so I’ll follow it to the landing site outside Fukushima. The course changes cost fuel and oxy, but they’re necessary to avoid unnecessary chances. Anyway, we’ll load the cargo at the vitrification plant, boost for space over the Pacific, and head out beyond the moon. Farside will already be in orbit, waiting to join up as soon as we clear atmosphere. Chuck’s supposed to fly off our wing until we’re about two thirds of the way into the trip and he'll head for the moon at that point. If there’s a problem, we’ll know about it long before we split up! We’ll release the cargo as we approach the Lagrange limit, meaning regardless of our speed it’s at escape velocity. From that point on, the sun’s gravity takes over. The canister will approach the sun from above the plane of the ecliptic, vaporizing as it approaches solar north. There’s not supposed to be any man-made craft up that way, and because it’s above the plane of the ecliptic I don’t expect asteroids or meteorites either. This first trip is the trailblazer, the rest of the transport flights will use our course data, so I was careful when I worked out the flight plan. Sound good to you?"

"What about weather?"

"Fukushima is partly cloudy, light winds from the south. The Pacific south of Japan is clear."

"I don’t see any problem. The only real trouble point is here, north of the Gulf of Bothnia. You’ll want to cross this zone after Russia passes off to the east. We’ll notify Sweden and Norway, but they won’t have a problem. They know we’re flying empty or hauling water. No radioactive issues, in other words, plus they also want some of our business. Panit’s due to open talks with Sweden next week, I’ll have him mention it to them. But the Russians are different, we’ve had trouble with them, so make sure you don’t overfly this area west of Murmansk."

"I won’t. We’ve got about two hours before we can launch, so if you want to grab a bite to eat and a cup of coffee—?"

"Let’s do it. Preflight Gypsy in, say, forty-five minutes, then we’ll wait for the launch window to open. I’ll file your flight plan with NFI headquarters in Switzerland."

***

Will saw nothing during the flight that concerned him. Wolfgang’s control was flawless during the boost to altitude, and the flight computer docked at each refueling station using the subroutine Chuck had pioneered. Refilling the water tanks took half an hour each, and topping off Gypsy’s onboard hydrogen and oxygen tanks was also without incident. Wolfgang disconnected after the last refill and slowed the ship, sinking to a lower orbit. They waited, impellers barely ticking over, as the Earth rotated beneath them. Wolfgang slowed the ship further, breaking orbit just as Japan appeared over the western horizon. The impellers slowed their descent and Gypsy passed easily through the upper atmosphere. Wolfgang turned the ship on its long axis, watching as Japan passed beneath them. A final correction put them on course for Fukushima. The big craft slowed as it approached the factory, hovering momentarily before settling onto its skids. The twin halves of the cargo hatch opened as Gypsy touched down.

An hour later, loading complete and canister secured, they began the takeoff checklist. Wolfgang dialed up the impellers but nothing happened for a moment. Finally, Gypsy sluggishly broke ground.

"Will, something’s wrong! I’m at 94% power and I’m barely able to control her!"

"The electrical system shows nominal, except that the impellers are drawing a lot of power. We’re sucking more fuel too. The cargo has to be the problem, it’s heavier than we specified! Damn! Did they do this deliberately? I’ll have some Japanese ass if they did! You fly, I’m calling Switzerland. Wolfgang, bring your impellers to 100%, and if that doesn’t give you control, prepare to jettison the canister. We’re already feet wet, don’t worry about what’s underneath. We can take a final peek with the radar before we drop the canister."

"Is Frenchy in Switzerland, Will?"

"Doesn’t matter, Wolfgang, they’ll notify him wherever he is. I’ll tell them what’s going on. Do you want to abort?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Yes. You’re the commander, so command! I won’t overrule you unless I think the ship is in danger. If you need to drop the canister, roll the ship belly up, open the cargo hatches, then unlock the clamps. Japan can fish it out of the ocean. Don’t worry about Gypsy, she can fly upside down. The impellers are gimbal mounted."

"I’ll try to continue the mission, Will. If you’re okay with that, I mean."

"You’re the commander, Wolfgang."

"Change of plan, Will." Wolfgang’s tone was firm. "We’ll tank at Station Two, it’s closer to our current flight path. Notify Chuck. As soon as we’ve got full tanks, I’ll head out. The trip back will take longer, but by using lunar gravity to slingshot us back, I can complete the mission. Shutting down the impellers should leave me with enough fuel to make turnaround for the moon after we launch the canister. Hang on, I’ll run the numbers just to be sure—" Numbers on the screen blinked rapidly, then stabilized. "Seven and a half hours, boosting at one quarter gee. We’ll be short of the Lagrange limit, but the canister will be carrying enough velocity so that it will still head for the sun. You okay with that?"

"Do it," Will said.

"Tell Chuck to increase the standoff distance, I’d rather not have to worry about Farside. Also let him know I expect to slingshot around Luna, so he should plan for that. If possible, I advise that he clear Luna before we arrive."

"I’ll tell him."

The moon was behind the Earth when Gypsy reached the release point. Wolfgang punched the button, opening the cargo hatch’s twin halves. "I won’t use the cargo arm, Will; I’ve got a better idea. Your comment about dumping the cargo in the Pacific will work just as well in space."

Wolfgang gently rotated the ship around its lateral axis until the open hatch pointed toward the distant sun. The ship continued on course, ‘flying’ with the dorsal surface leading the way. "Unlocking cargo restraints now, Will. Prepare for negative acceleration, one half gee."

"Right, good move. The canister will separate and keep going."

"That’s it. As soon as it’s clear, I’ll rotate the ship and head back. Fuel reserves should be enough, I'm planning to slingshot around the moon just in case something else goes wrong. We’ll pick up Chuck on the way and he can escort us back to Station Three. Otherwise, we might not have enough fuel to land."

The maneuver was completed without difficulty, and a minute later the canister sailed slowly away on its long trip to the sun. "Call the repeater satellite, see if you can raise Chuck," said Will. "Let him know we’re empty and on the way back. If he’s where he’s supposed to be, go ahead and use half-gee acceleration. I want to get home and chew some ass!"

"Copy, Will. Wait one—okay, Chuck’s ready. Half a gee it is, Course changed toward the moon as it comes around, three point six hours to rendezvous. Start sharpening your teeth, Will."

 

Chapter Three

Chuck refueled at Station Two, then headed back to complete the interrupted survey. He briefly considered landing to sample the surface texture, but realized he needed specialized help. The orbital survey would have to be enough for now. Eighteen orbits later, the survey completed, he increased power. Farside departed orbit and joined Gypsy on its way to distant Earth. The join-up was smooth and Chuck looked the ship over but saw no damage.

Chuck made a number of calls as he approached the atmosphere. His first call to Lina found her doing well. She wanted to discuss the proposed move to Australia, but Chuck explained it would be better to discuss it during his next trip home. His second call, to NFI’s Swiss office, reported his return to Earth. A third call was less successful; Frenchy wasn’t available, so the call was forwarded to his voicemail. Chuck left a message requesting a meeting with the company’s civil engineering staff.

Will had his anger in check by the time Gypsy landed, but only just. He called the company’s Swiss office and dictated a report of the near-tragedy, then asked to speak to Martha Simms. She was the very-competent American manager of the Swiss branch office, middle-aged, dark haired, slender, and unmarried. "Call the Japanese company that prepared our cargo! I want a word with the person in charge, and if he or she is not available, the supervisor, and if that one's not available then get me the Emperor!" Will snarled.

"I’ll see what I can do," replied Martha, taken aback at Will's near-rage.

"Martha, if the Japanese try to stall you can tell them I’m reconsidering whether to continue operating under the current contract! That cargo we just launches exceeded weight specs and it nearly caused us to crash! If it happens again, I’ll jettison the cargo and let the Japanese deal with it!"

"I’ll keep that in mind, Will. Was there anything else?"

"Not right now. Tell them I’ll meet with their representative as soon as he’s available."

"Will you need maintenance or an overhaul on Gypsy? Were any of the components stressed beyond safe limits?"

"No. We launched the cargo as planned and made it home without incident, but we might not be that lucky next time. Gypsy is a good bird, she’s got more power and better handling than I expected."

"That brings up another question. Are you ready to certify Wolfgang as a ship commander?"

"Absolutely. He’ll need a copilot, but he’s ready. You guys did a fine job of preparing him for command."

"Thank you, and I’ll pass that on too. That said, was there anything else you wanted to tell me?"

"No, Martha, that’s everything. Thanks for your help."

***

Chuck landed Farside at NFI’s Base Reykjavik and turned the ship over to the maintenance staff. They would conduct a complete biennial inspection, with special attention paid to the repairs done in Aladdinsville, before preparing the ship for its next mission. For the moment, both Farside and Gypsy were idle.

The transmitter, which the Japanese had insisted on adding to the first canister, sent out a continuous telemetry signal confirming that the Japanese container was on course for the sun. Satisfied, they paid NFI the agreed-upon fee. As a result, Germany, the US, and Russia were now ready to discuss similar arrangements. France had already signed on, so as soon as ships were available the company would begin hauling French fuel rods. France had their own side-negotiations going as well; they were prepared to temporarily store rods from other countries until they could be disposed of. For a fee, of course!

Meanwhile, the Japanese were investigating the problem that Will had reported. They scheduled a meeting, and Frenchy decided that he would also attend.

***

Frenchy caught an early JAL flight and landed at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. Will, waiting at the baggage terminal, collected his bag and the two took a shuttle bus to the hotel where they checked Frenchy in, then headed downstairs to meet the Japanese delegation. Will explained what had happened during Gypsy’s maiden voyage, and Frenchy agreed that the potential profits were simply not worth risking their ships. Something would have to be done, or that first Japanese cargo would also be their last. Grim faced, they entered the conference room. The hotel had obligingly provided them with a certified translator; they would not have to rely on the language skills of the Japanese executives.

The men stood and bowed as Frenchy and Will entered. The two bowed politely in return, then greeted the men.

Will got right to the point as soon as they were seated, still angry at what had almost happened. He was prepared to disregard protocol in order to leave no doubt that the Japanese company had behaved unacceptably. "Which of you was in charge of preparing the shipment?"

"I regret to say that Mister Haruka will not be joining us. He was our representative to the company."

"Why is he not here, then? I specifically asked to speak directly to him."

"Mister Haruka—"

Frenchy cautioned Will as the man paused. "Keep your cool. Anger won’t help."

"Frenchy, that guy damned near got us killed! I’ve got a right to be mad!"

"Get yourself under control, Will! I’ll do the talking." Muttering, Will subsided.

"Sir, Mister Haruka has passed away. He cannot be here. We offer our apologies for the circumstances."

"What do you mean, passed away? He died?"

"Mister French, he understood his error. He could not live with the shame. He has passed on."

The silence lasted half a minute; the Japanese waited patiently, but neither Will nor Frenchy could think of anything to say. Finally, Frenchy responded. "I am sorry to hear that, but the problem remains. Does anyone know why the cargo canister was so overloaded?"

The Japanese man who had taken the lead looked at the others, who nodded back. He looked at his hands for a moment, gathering his thoughts. "I regret to say that we all share in Mister Haruka’s shame. None of us expected Mister Haruka to act as he did."

"Why did he do that, Mister—?" Will asked.

"My name is Watanabe, Mister Crane. I am the chairman of this board. Our company has several branches. We collect the nuclear material, prepare it for shipment, and disburse funds to your company upon completion of a successful launch. My associates are members of this board, as was Mister Haruka. We speak for the parent corporation." The man paused for a moment to make sure the two Americans understood. "We negotiated with your company in good faith, but circumstances have changed. Mister French, we have been approached by officials from our government. We are still most interested in disposing of radioactive waste material and our government shares our concerns, but the government has other interests as well. How much do you know of Japan’s affairs?"

"I’ve done considerable reading, of course, but I can’t claim expertise." Frenchy paused, deciding what he wanted to say. "You’re faced with a declining population. Births are not keeping up with deaths, and as a result the average age of your citizens is increasing. There’s also the problem of uneasy relations with China and South Korea, plus a very high national debt. Your nuclear power plants are in trouble; part of this has to do with safe disposal of the spent fuel rods, but the issue is complicated because some of your people are hostile to all nuclear operations. It’s understandable, of course; they don’t want another Hiroshima, and the meltdown of the Fukushima reactors created difficulties. Japan experiences a number of significant natural events, earthquakes, typhoons, things like that, and there’s no way of preventing them. Your government is moving toward greater militarism even as significant numbers of Japanese remain adamantly opposed to it. Japan imports more than she sells, and this imbalance is draining money from your economy, creating pressure on the yen."

"Just so. Financing for our contract with you can still be arranged, but this has strategic implications. Our finance minister pointed out that you have offices in a number of nations, but almost all are in the West. I wonder if you might consider investing in Japan?"

"We did," Frenchy said. "The problem, Mister Watanabe, is that Japan’s technical products are costly. As for establishing a base here, Japan has limited open space which means that land for a base would be costly compared with other locations. There’s also the question of security. Your people have experienced violence recently."

"I see," Mister Watanabe said. "I have little room to maneuver regarding costs. We still have the nuclear material issue, but our earlier efforts were here in Japan, so the costs did not impact our foreign trade balance. By employing your company, we hoped to save money as well as reduce the environmental impact which would do much to placate our citizens. The government has pointed out, however, that our national debt and balance of payments would be severely affected. Money transferred to you would have to be made up from domestic operations, which in turn would slow future development here in Japan. The projected sum is considerable."

Watanabe cleared his throat. "Such were the discussions we believe convinced Mister Haruka to act as he did. We believe that is why he added the nuclear materials from an extra fuel rod to the mix that went into the canister. The uranium, plutonium, and byproducts from fission are much heavier than silica. His actions not only added weight, they made the canister more dangerous due to increased radioactivity. He endangered our people as well as yours! We can ensure this never happens again, but the effect on our national economy remains unresolved. We take an unusual step in explaining this matter in such detail, but we are in your debt due to the danger your employees experienced." Watanabe’s expression changed from apologetic to pleading. "Are there no unfilled needs that we can solve? We have excellent heavy industries as you know, we also are an island nation with access to the Pacific, so surely there must be something?"

"To be honest, I can’t think of anything," Frenchy said. "The only thing we don’t have a source for at the moment is small space-capable fission power plants. We use fuel cells and Japanese companies produce them, but your products offer no real advantage. They are no better than the ones we currently use. Fuel cells also won’t work for the interplanetary ships we hope to eventually build."

"May we have a moment to confer, Mister French? Perhaps something might be done."

The conference-within-a-conference lasted more than fifteen minutes. A great deal of low-voiced argument ensued; whatever the topic, there was no agreement among the men, but finally Watanabe gained control. The rapid flow of Japanese caused the interpreter’s eyes to widen; up to this point, he’d been quiet, bored with having nothing to do. Frenchy glanced at him, but the man said nothing. Whatever was going on, he did not want to tell the two Americans. They sipped water and waited.

"It is possible we may be able to help you," Watanabe said. "We have excellent scientists and engineers, and some are experts in designing nuclear units. In fact, experimental work has been done on units similar to what you describe. We share this with you in confidence, and hope you will not reveal the information to others. It will take time to do what you ask, there’s no certainty that our scientists will succeed, and the work will be costly. Can you guarantee purchase of such units if we can build them to your specifications?"

"I can. How many are you talking about?"

"How many do you need, Mister French?"

The negotiations continued for a few minutes more before both were satisfied with the arrangement. "We have a final question, Mister French. Can you assist in financing the costs of development? Perhaps by transporting our fuel rods at a lower cost per unit?"

Frenchy glanced at Will, who nodded back.

"We can. We’ll reduce the charges per shipment to half what you agreed to, the other half will be our contribution to the research effort. Let’s say you match what we lose by reducing our fees, thus splitting the cost. We can offer something else; we will build ships that can carry unconverted fuel rods, reducing your costs even further. The new ships will have additional shielding around the cargo bay and between the fuel rods, so the fuel rods can be loaded directly from your storage pools and safely disposed of in space. I believe you already have equipment to handle the fuel rods, so that should require no additional costs. But no more overloading, that has to be clear! My ship commanders will jettison the cargoes if it happens again."

Watanabe stood, then bowed assent. The others rose and bowed in turn.

Frenchy and Will shook hands with each of the men before leaving. Neither cracked a smile.

Until they were back in their hotel room! There, the smiles turned into wide grins. "I wonder what kind of booze is available, Frenchy? I think we deserve to celebrate!"

***

Chuck’s meeting with the engineering staff did not go as expected. "Here’s the problem, Boss. You need machinery that can operate on the moon, in vacuum. You say you want an electrically-powered backhoe, but there are problems with that, starting with energy density. Batteries just aren’t that efficient. They’re also expensive, you’ve got to haul them a long way, and how would you recharge them? You want to use electricity from a power plant you haven’t built yet to do that. Not good engineering practice, Chuck! A critic might even call the idea dumb."

Chuck shook his head at the chuckles. "Okay, so how would you do it? Will’s idea is a potential gold mine, it’s just too good to give up. There must be some way, short of lines of men with shovels digging ditches on the moon."

"Why not use a diesel backhoe?"

"What, a diesel engine in space? Diesels breathe air, and the moon is pretty short of that!"

"Maybe, but let’s explore the idea of no air. What part of the air does a diesel use?"

"Oxygen, of course, lots of oxygen! The more fuel you burn, the more oxygen the engine consumes."

"We already hydrolyze oxygen from water, Chuck, that’s how the refueling stations work, and we could easily set up a station on Luna that would do the same thing. We can haul water to provide the raw material, that’s what we do with the refueling stations, although we might not have to. There may be water on the moon, we just have to find it.

"It will be ice, of course, but melting it is easy. A pressurized container with a simple concentrating lens is more than hot enough when the sun is up. Maybe use a Fresnel lens, molded from the new transparent metal? If we can’t find ice on Luna, we already have a base in Iceland, that gives us access to the North Atlantic. Think icebergs and the Titanic; icebergs are fresh water, so there would be no desalination problems. There’s also Greenland, which would probably be willing to sell us ice from their icecap. That’s freshwater ice, easy to mine, easy to transport. I’ve got a few ideas about that too. Have you considered a system of barges? They’d need their own power plants and impellers, but control could be exercised from a crew module in front. It wouldn’t be remote control at all, just signals via a cable to operate the power and propulsion system on each barge. They could be joined in an extended line or clumped together in bunches, whatever looks best in practice. Each module would need to be self-sufficient except for control, but that could come from the flight computers in the crew module."

"Wow, I can see that working! How large were you thinking of?"

"A hundred tons, a hundred thousand tons, I don’t think it would make a difference. Assembly of the barges would be a problem, but that’s just cut-and-try engineering. Easy money."

"You don’t think small, do you? Okay, eventually maybe we mine ice on the moon, but we can haul a lot of ice from Earth in the beginning, cheap. We land the ice on the moon, maybe leave it packaged in the transport barge until we're ready to use it. Now what?"

"We already have refueling stations. We upgrade that design to a larger one, maybe two or three of them, and park them on the moon near where you want to build your electrical plant. Feed them water from melted ice, you get oxygen and hydrogen by electrolysis. I think a diesel engine would work better, but we can look at a hydrogen-oxygen engine if we have to. But let’s consider diesel; it wouldn’t even have to be a four-stroke unit. A single-cycle power plant could work, since you’re burning diesel with pure oxygen. Give me a minute to get this on paper."

Pencils came out and the yellow note pads were soon covered with drawings and formulae. "Two cylinder or four cylinder?" caused another intense discussion. "What about weight? At one sixth Earth weight, as soon as you spud in your bucket, your backhoe lifts off the ground. What about that?"

"Yeah, but the materials are also one-sixth weight!"

"Doesn’t matter, it’s extracting a bucket-load from the ground, whatever that’s like, and you have to rip the bucket through the dirt or whatever before you can lift it. Sometimes you only get half a bucket, maybe only a few scrapings if the ground is hard."

"Hmmm—could be a problem."

"Maybe make it heavier? How about powered augers, say one at each corner? They bore into the ground, so they could anchor the unit if you don’t dump the spoil. Reverse them when you’re ready to crawl forward."

"Okay, that’s doable if we add a gearbox to the augers, but more weight on the machine would be simpler and you wouldn’t need to waste time emplacing and reversing the augers. Tracks, you think?"

"Absolutely. How are you coming with that engine?"

"Got a first approximation. Four cylinders, because it might not be as efficient as I think, but here’s the way it should work. No intake valves, just direct injection into each cylinder and each stroke is a power stroke. Timing is important; the oxy, liquid oxy or compressed, have to work that out on the ground before we send it upstairs, has to be injected while the cylinder is halfway up in the reverse stroke. That’s how you get the heating effect, from compression. Inject the diesel fuel when the piston nears the top of the cylinder, after the oxy is hot. Ignition takes place, the mix expands and pushes the cylinder down. No exhaust valves needed either. Near the bottom of the stroke, openings in the cylinder wall allow the gases to escape. Most of them will be cleared out in a hurry because they’re escaping into vacuum. Gases cool by expansion, so you channel the expanded exhaust gases past cooling fins molded into the engine block. It’s like what happens using air cooling, but using expanded exhaust gases instead of ambient air to cool the engine. No need to worry about pollution, nobody’s breathing the exhaust, and it won’t even need a muffler. The engine would be self-contained, modular, and much more powerful for its weight than any conventional diesel. It will probably need a heavy flywheel to smooth out the revolutions, though, which on Luna is not a disadvantage. I think we can do this. What do you think?"

"I think you guys are nuts, but I like it! If you can make this work, you’ll have a nice bonus coming. Maybe a paid vacation in Finland! I know Frenchy likes the place; it may have something to do with the saunas."

"Saunas, you say? A whole month up there? It’s next door to Sweden, and for that matter Denmark and Norway aren’t far. And you did mention bonuses—?"

 

Chapter Four

Alexander Zlotov, a deputy minister of Roscosmos State Corporation, was tired of the discussion!

He had come up through the Russian Federal Space Agency, then transferred to Roscosmos when the RFSA had been dissolved. The name was different, but things hadn’t changed much, if at all. He dismissed his visitor and lit a cigarette. The military always wanted more than the RSC could deliver, but were never willing to pay for the development costs! Probably it wasn’t the man’s fault; no agency was truly flush, thanks to the worldwide petroleum glut. Low oil prices had forced a temporary change in the usual three-year fiscal plan. The new one-year plan might serve to ride out the downturn, but no one could predict what would happen when the spending caps were lifted. Most expected inflation to increase, but where it would stop no one knew. The president insisted on holding tight to the nation’s gold and foreign currency reserves, meaning that the central bank was unable to support the sagging ruble. The conflict in Ukraine simmered, a military buildup in the Middle East was underway, and both sucked more money from an already-anemic budget.

The telephone’s ring interrupted his musings. "Sir, I’ve been contacted by a Chinese official. He would like to meet with you on a matter that concerns both our nations. He would also like a representative of the United States and the European Union to be included. He suggests that he could speak to an American contact, a staff member in the office of one of their Senators, and hopes that you might speak to someone in the EU."

"Curious. Why me? And why would he want to meet with all those people? Did he say when?"

"He hoped that you would suggest a date, but asked me to tell you that sooner would be better. He is concerned about an issue that affects space policy of both our nations."

"Did he say where he wants to do this? I’m not interested in going back to China! The place is too crowded, too polluted, and they waste far too much time! Let them come here."

"Sir, that might not be possible. If the press found out—"

"I see what you mean. Well, not there, not here, and certainly not in the USA. No, this proposed meeting might not even be possible! Can’t he send a message through the diplomatic pouch if he’s concerned about security?’

"He said that a face-to-face meeting was necessary."

"You’re remarkably well informed, Evgeny! What’s going on here?"

"I’ve acted as a conduit before, Minister. Your predecessor often used my contacts."

"Deputy minister, Evgeny. Why was I not told of this?"

"I believe it was in the briefing papers, sir. Our superiors know of my experience."

"You’re saying I should have read that stack of boring documents, aren’t you?"

"No, sir! I would never suggest that!"

"Well, no matter. Do we have a place where a low-level meeting might be conducted without being spied on?"

"Similar meetings have happened in Baku, Sir."

"In Azerbaijan? Backward place! Why there?"

"It is quite isolated, Sir. Very little of interest to the press goes on there. The Chinese official who contacted me, Chu Dien, has been there before."

"Meeting my predecessor, I suppose," the Minister mused. "It’s not that far from Moscow, so transportation wouldn’t be a problem. We’ve got enough left in the budget to cover the trip, I expect. I would only be gone a day or two, three at the most. What of the European? Do you have a suggestion?"

"I do. He’s German, a man named Willi Kraenkel, but he works for the EU. Some sort of financial analyst, I believe."

"We do a lot of business with the EU, so we don’t want to upset that. Neither of us would enjoy what might happen should that come to pass, Evgeny! With that caution, go ahead and see what you can arrange. I’ll want at least a week’s warning, preferably two. No surprises, Evgeny!"

"I’ll see to it, sir."

Deputy Minister Zlotov looked after him sourly. Uppity clerk. Who did he know? More important, who was using him, and for what?

***

Chuck met the chief engineer of NFI’s spaceship design section in Rovaniemi. He was using Frenchy’s office today; Frenchy was in Reykjavik and wasn’t expected back for two days.

"Afternoon, Chuck. I was reading your proposal. That’s quite a change you’ve got in mind, and that idea of hauling ice to the moon by linking barges together is intriguing. If we can make it work."

"I have confidence in you, Pete. So what do you think of the proposal."

"Not much, to be honest! Putting the hatch on the bottom, that’s not difficult, but I’m curious why."

"It makes it easier to load and discharge cargo, Pete. We can do without the two flight crewmen, reducing costs per flight, by putting the controls between the pilot and copilot stations where either one can operate them. It also reduces the chance of the crew being exposed to radiation. We’re not like other ships, we can hover, and the flight computers allow very precise control. What I’d like to do is package four fuel rods with insulation between them. The copilot would open the hatch, the pilot hovers over the package and descends until the copilot is able to engage the locks, then lift high enough to close the cargo hatches. I was thinking you could work with the Japanese to design the fuel rod pack, then have your guys make up a dummy so the crew has a chance to practice loading it. I wouldn’t want to try the first hookup with a live cargo!

"There’s another reason for locating the hatch on the ship's bottom. There was a problem during the first flight, serious enough that Will thought about dumping the cargo—it was heavier than outlined in the specifications, and had it been only a little heavier it could have crashed Gypsy—-but Wolfgang was the pilot, and he wanted to keep going. He got away with it, but next time? Far better to dump the cargo than have it and the ship crash in the ocean. Or over land, for that matter."

"You’re talking about a single-use ship to haul only one kind of cargo. Why even bother with a hatch? Suppose we make the cargo bay modular, so that when loaded it becomes part of the ship. We’d have to strengthen the dorsal frame and the two lateral frame members, but we’d save weight if we could eliminate the handling arm."

"Wouldn’t that increase the expense, dumping a special-purpose container."

"It would, but how many would you really dump in space? I hear rumors that you plan on discharging cargo—elsewhere."

"You know about that, do you?"

"Yeah, engineers talk, you should know that. That one-cycle diesel? They’ll never get it to work!"

"You a betting man, Pete? Some might think you could never get the new ship design to work. Not to mention a space train using modular barges."

"Point. I’ll give you a hundred, Chuck. What odds?"

"Odds, Pete? Get serious!"

***

The old ranch house was lonely.

Lina was on her way to Australia; she and her doctor had jointly decided that she should go now or wait until after the babies were born. The house seemed double empty without Lina. Chuck opened a beer, then changed his mind. Pouring it down the sink, he put the bottle in the trash and grabbed his hat, then clipped the Sig-Sauer .380 to his belt; rattlesnakes had moved into the area, now that no one lived full-time at the ranch. Chuck followed the path leading to the small cemetery a quarter mile from the house. His grandparents were buried there, as were Mel’s ashes. None of his relatives had wanted to make the decision so Panit had made it for them, and Chuck had seen to interring Mel’s remains. Hopefully, this would be the last grave in the tiny hilltop cemetery!

Chuck pulled a couple of weeds, then looked beyond the graves. Was it really necessary for him to come here? Morty, Mary Ellen, and Mel lived on in his memories. This deserted hillock was no more than a place where bodies could be disposed of.

But he couldn’t make up his mind. What would Morty have thought of the idea? Would he have wanted Chuck to visit their graves?

Finally, still undecided, he headed back to the house. This time he drank a beer, then another, moodily waiting for the sun to go down. The silent house waited, empty, lonely.

It was past midnight before Chuck went inside.

***

Frenchy got back to Rovaniemi late Friday and managed to catch Pete before he left for the weekend. "If you’re not in too much of a hurry, Pete, I’ve got a bottle of Lagavulin that needs tasting." The two sipped the scotch and Pete mentioned that Chuck had been there, but that he was now back in Texas. "Pete, shouldn’t Chuck be here? If he talked to you, wouldn’t it make sense for him to be here too?"

"Why, Frenchy? Chuck’s a pilot, he’s not an engineer. You tell me what you want, I’ll tell you if it’s doable. Let’s keep the working group small, okay?"

"Okay, then. I’ve got another ship for you to work on."

"One of the guys will do it, but probably not me. I’m pretty busy, working up Chuck’s latest brainstorm. Or maybe Chuck’s folly. Is this another cargo hauler?"

"Yes, and no. I want you to design a flying saucer."

"First question, why? What does the saucer shape have to do with hauling cargo to the moon?"

"Not to the moon, Pete. We’re going interplanetary."

Pete shook his head. "Not with fuel cells, you’re not. Okay, you could do it, but you’d be in free fall all the way. You can’t carry enough fuel to boost that far, not at one gee or even a quarter of a gee, not and make it back. You thinking of hanging refueling stations out there in interplanetary space? You’ll need bigger solar arrays as you get further away from the sun."

"No, this is different. Have you ever heard of SMR’s, small modular reactors?"

"Sure, Los Alamos worked up a couple of designs, but they won’t sell them. A number of private companies are working on this too, they got a lot of their design information from Los Alamos, but the last I heard no one had a working model."

"I may have another source, Pete. Keep it under your hat, okay?"

"Why not? I wouldn’t want my guys to think I was crazier than I am! Design a ship around a power system that you don’t have yet, that’s reasonably crazy. I can gin up a few ideas, but how much weight does this saucer have to lift? How big are the reactors? Do you have performance specs, anything at all? Even how much power the SMRs are supposed to produce?"

"I’ll let you know as soon as I have the specs, Pete. Get a few ideas down on paper so you won’t have to waste time when the reactors are available. Consider a one-reactor design to start, and another that’s big enough to need more than one. You know that Morty always wanted three for reliability, don't you?"

"Would the one-reactor version need to be saucer-shaped?"

"No, the saucer was Morty’s idea. He wrote up a prospect sheet, back when I thought we could get reactors from Los Alamos."

"I’ll find it if it’s in the records," Pete said. "As for the single-reactor ship, it will need to be big to take advantage of the extra power. A bunch of impellers to start with, but you need to think about designing really big ones. Simpler for the computer to deal with, although less reliable than lots of smaller ones. I'll need to work up some numbers. Thanks for the scotch, and I’ll give you a call when I’ve got something worth talking about."

Pete nodded to Frenchy, then left the office. He was a good engineer and a better supervisor, a combination that was unfortunately rare. Maybe that was why he could afford to be prickly toward his nominal boss. Frenchy grinned after him, then left to put out a few fires of his own. It was amazing how many things went wrong when he was out of the office!

***

Wolfgang Albrecht found Will at his desk, working on the stack of papers that seemed never to shrink. Even in the age of computers, paper ruled. "Got a minute, Will?"

"Sure, Wolfgang. Want a cup of coffee? I just made a fresh pot."

"Thank you, yes. I wish you’d try European coffees, Will. Yours are quite strong!"

"Maybe I will. I can always stock a few pounds for when you visit. What’s on your mind? Is there a problem with Gypsy?"

"I don’t know. Maybe. Mikhail saw something strange, and I wanted to ask you about it."

"Strange?" Will asked, pouring himself a coffee. "Strange how?"

"Have you ever seen a faint glow around the nose of Farside?"

"No, never. I’ve only flown her a few times, so if it’s not very strong I might have missed it. But Chuck would have seen it, and he hasn’t said anything."

"The only time we noticed it was just before we dropped off that second Japanese shipment," Wolfgang said. "Could it have something to do with radiation?"

"I don’t know. I suppose we could find out. Feel like flying a water run to the stations and topping their tanks off? You could take a close look, see if you spot this mysterious glow when you’re hauling something that’s not radioactive." Will paused, thinking. "If the glow is dim, you might have seen it because you were out beyond lunar orbit. It’s dark out there, you don’t even get much reflection from the Earth since you’re above the plane of the ecliptic. If something’s going on with the ship, that would make it easier to see. Now that I think about it, there’s a kind of glow, Cherenkov radiation it’s called, in the pools where they cool the reactor rods, but that only happens when there’s a lot of radiation. Your hair isn’t falling out, is it?"

"Do not joke! I’m worried, I don’t know what this is. It might even be my imagination."

"There’s nothing radioactive about the impellers, Wolfgang, and you said he saw the glow where the impellers are. The larger ones are aft by the wing roots, the smaller attitude control impellers are in the nose. It can’t be the radar, that’s not radioactive either, and you wouldn’t have seen anything near the stern. Didn’t some of the early Apollo and Gemini missions mention lights?"

"I don’t remember, maybe it happened during the shuttle flights. I’d have to check. There’s another possibility, but I’d have to run that through the engineering staff. They might have an idea."

"Is it dangerous?" Wolfgang asked nervously. "Do you think it’s something that could endanger Gypsy?"

"I doubt it, you’ve made two long flights with no problems. Any computer glitches?"

"Nein— ah, no. They function as they’re supposed to. The impellers too, even the cabin controls work as they should. Flying Gypsy is quite comfortable. But I don’t understand this glow, and things I don’t understand worry me."

"That’s understandable, Wolfgang. Look, would you rather I flew the next mission? I’ll see if Chuck’s available to copilot."

"No, I think it better that he fly off our wing. Let him photograph the glow. Perhaps it is nothing. We might be imagining things. The cargo, it is dangerous. The Japanese admitted that the first cargo was more radioactive than it should have been. Would you like to fly the water replenishment mission?"

"I think I should. Just to be sure. If you don’t mind?"

"Then I will fly as copilot. I can evaluate how well you function as commander this time!"

 

Chapter Five

Lina reached for her phone as the agent announced that the aircraft was boarding. Frenchy answered on the second ring. She inched forward while carrying on the conversation.

"Dad, I’m off to Brisbane. I’m not sure—" Lina’s voice was soft.

"I think Chuck’s right, honey. The only thing keeping you safe is that the opposition isn’t looking for you. You have to expect that sooner or later they’ll find you. Think of the babies."

"I know. If I wasn’t pregnant, I’d be with Chuck!"

"You’d have a hard time keeping up, the way he gets around."

"Yeah, I noticed that," Lina said dryly. "They’re about to take my ticket, so I have to go."

"First class, right?"

"Right, I need the room. The twins have a habit of kicking at the wrong time! Anyway, there was one more thing I wanted to ask. Did you finalize that sale?"

"I did. The power plant sold, and that means we’re almost out of New Mexico. The factory is closed now, and the ranch has only a caretaker crew. They’ll watch the buildings, make sure vandals don’t damage anything. I’m trying to sell the factory, but so far, no serious buyers. I don’t know, I may decide to just keep the old ranch. Taxes are low, so it’s not exactly a drain on resources. But the power plant was sold, and I paid off the last of our debt with what we got for it. We also got a chunk of stock in the power company, which I decided to keep for the time being. We’re a minority stockholder right now, but if more comes on the market I’ll see what I can do. Maybe gain enough for de-facto control?

"Speaking of stock, Sol’s got a nasty shock coming if I ever gain control of his board of directors! I’ve quietly picked up a considerable number of shares, and as of now, I’ll only need another five percent to call a meeting of the board and kick his sorry ass out."

"My, you do hold a grudge, don’t you? I’ve got to go, dad, I’ll call you when I’m settled."

"Enjoy Brisbane, Lina. Look around for property, but don’t jump too soon. Make sure it’s what you want."

"I will, dad. Bye."

Lina closed the connection and hurried down the long boarding tunnel, the last first-class passenger to board.

***

Will unlocked the controls, then began the power-up checklist. Wolfgang watched, following his own checklist.

"Radios, Wolfgang?"

That was a preview of NFI: New Frontiers, Inc (Book II, the New Frontiers Series). To read the rest purchase the book.

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