Delphi Nation (Delphi in Space Book 4)

by Bob Blanton

  “Do you think that’s right?” Zane asked.

  “I don’t know,” Catie said. “But if a business starts providing goods or services that MacKenzie is already providing, we would scale back what MacKenzie does and let the new guys take over the business.”

  “You would?”

  “Yes, unless it was something we were keeping control over for another reason; in that case, we just wouldn’t let the business get started.”

  “What if an existing business started branching out?”

  “Same thing, if we didn’t feel we needed to have control, we would let them take over.”

  “What if they started to overcharge their customers?”

  “I don’t know. How would they do that? People would just buy online or from Rarotonga,” Catie said. “We have plenty of bars and restaurants.”

  “What about grocery stores?” Zane asked.

  “Right now, we control all of them. We supply most of the fresh food and produce, and they import the paper goods, canned food, and things like that,” Catie said. “If we started letting them go private, I assume we would make sure there was more than one company.”

  “What if one company starts buying out the others?”

  “I think we’d tell them to stop it,” Catie said. “Everything that comes into the city comes through us, so we should be able to force the issue if we think it’s necessary.”

  “An interesting set of problems,” Zane said. “How would I interact with the board?”

  “You would come in to do reports to the board; you could make recommendations, and ask for policy changes then,” Catie said.

  “No seat on the board?”

  “Not now,” Catie said. “Maybe later, but we’re still keeping it to a very tight group. I hope you’re not offended.”

  “Not much,” Zane said. “What does it pay?”

  “I don’t know; what should it pay?” Catie said. “We pay our pilots two hundred thousand per year.”

  “That’s way more than I was making as the managing director of the bank,” Zane said.

  “That’s okay,” Catie said. “We’re going to have special problems and special headaches.”

  “Then you’ve got yourself a bank manager,” Zane said. “Where is this bank going to be?”

  “I assume we should put it in the office block,” Catie said. “Lots of stuff will just be online. The comm units everybody has will let them manage their accounts and buy stuff. And if they bank with you, we’ll deposit their money directly. So it’s okay that it’s a bit far.”

  “Two miles isn’t that far,” Zane said. “That’s typical of a neighborhood bank.”

  “If you go by and look around, you can tell me which unit you want. The block is only about twenty-five percent built up, and most of the units are still empty.”

  “I’ll let you know by tomorrow. How big a staff am I authorized?”

  “You decide,” Catie said. “We’re not worried about startup cost, so tell us what you need.”

  “Deal,” Zane said and extended his hand to shake with Catie.

  Catie shook his hand and stood up to leave, “Bye, Mommy.”

  “My little tycoon,” Linda said. Her eyes were damp with tears as she gave Catie a kiss to say goodbye.

  Chapter 8

  What’s an Asteroid?

  “Thanks for coming,” Blake said to Jimmy Gaines and Paul Danvers.

  “Hey, you’re the boss,” Jimmy said.

  “Anyway, I think you know my niece, Catie, and her colleague, Natalia. This is Liz, one of our pilots and a member of the board as well.”

  “Howdy ladies,” Jimmy and Paul said. Paul put a little more emphasis into his greeting, and he smiled at Natalia.

  “Let’s get started,” Blake said. “I want you to keep these discussions private for a while. I want to have most things worked out before we get everybody involved. Of course, we’ll bring in additional expertise as we need it.”

  “Okay,” Jimmy said. “What’s the big secret? Just where is this mine you want us to work?”

  “It’s actually three mines,” Blake said, “and they’re not actually mines, they’re asteroids.”

  “What the hell is an asteroid?” Paul asked.

  “You know, one of those big rocks in space,” Blake said. “We call them meteors when they fall to Earth.”

  “So you have some of them meteors that you want us to mine?” Paul asked.

  “No, these are still in space orbiting the sun,” Blake said.

  “I know you’re the boss and all,” Jimmy said, “but do you really have to razz us like this? We can take a joke as well as any man, but we’d really like to get to work.”

  “Uncle Blake, let me help,” Catie said. “Here, look at this.” Catie turned on the big display and brought up a picture of the space station with the Earth in the background.

  “What’s that?” Jimmy asked.

  “That’s our space station,” Catie said. “It’s in orbit around Earth, and here’s what it’s supposed to look like when completed.” Catie brought up the display of the station with all three rings. “It’s really big, and it takes a lot of material to build it. That means we had to get some asteroids so we could mine the material in space instead of having to lift it all from Earth.” Catie changed the display to show a picture of one of the asteroids with the six women posing for the photo. “That’s us when we got this one. Right now, it’s in orbit around the sun just ahead of Earth.”

  “Now this is just crazy talk,” Paul said. Jimmy was just hugging himself and moaning quietly.

  “This is an Oryx,” Catie said as she changed the display. “They’re the shuttles we use to get into orbit and to lift material to the space station. They can only be filled about twenty percent when they have to lift off from Earth. But we can fill them all the way up when we’re just going from the asteroids back to the space station.”

  “You folks are serious,” Jimmy said.

  “Oh, yes. We’ll take you up to the space station next week,” Catie said. “That will give you a chance to experience microgravity and a chance to dispel any doubts you have left.”

  “What do you mean by microgravity?” Paul asked.

  “The asteroids are so small that they don’t have any gravity, or not enough to mean anything. So, when you’re working on them, you don’t have any weight,” Catie explained. “Uncle Blake, do you want to take over?”

  “No!” Blake said, “you’re doing fine, I’m just here to take notes right now,” he said with a laugh.

  “We have a bunch of guys who are experienced working in microgravity now; they’re the ones who built the space station. Liz did all the coordination of that so she’ll have lots of details about what they had problems with while working in microgravity,” Catie said. “The three of us did all the work to get the asteroids here, so we’ve got some experience in what you’ll have to deal with.”

  Both Jimmy and Paul just shook off their shock and leaned forward. “Now how about you tell us about the problems you had getting them?” Paul asked.

  “Well, the first issue was that you can’t do anything without anchoring yourself down. Natalia tried to drill holes at first, but she would start floating off after a few seconds. We had to put small anchors into the asteroid so she could tie herself down.”

  “If you were floating off when you drilled, how did you drive the small anchors?”

  “Our inertia was enough for that,” Catie said. “Inertia is kind of like weight. If I tried to push you, your inertia would make it hard. Or if you’re running, your inertia makes it hard to stop you,” Catie explained. “I’m sure you’ve dealt with it when you were mining.”

  “Yeah, we called it momentum,” Paul said.

  “Momentum is your inertia when you’re moving. Anyway, you can drive a small anchor in, counting on your inertia to keep you in place. If that isn’t enough, you can use the thruster in your suit to push you down.”

  “Thruster
?” Jimmy asked.

  “A stream of air that pushes you,” Catie explained. “Oh, I guess I forgot to mention the vacuum. As you know, there’s no air in space. That means you’ll have to work in a spacesuit. Uncle Blake will take you by the outfitter, and he’ll make a few for you so you can go up with us on Thursday. Ours are really tight and flexible, nothing like you see the astronauts wearing on the news.”

  “Okay, so we got to tie ourselves down to the asteroid,” Paul said. “What are we mining, by the way?”

  “Two of the asteroids are mostly ice,” Catie said. “One is frozen water, and that’s what we want, the water. You may decide to just set up a way to melt the ice and pump it into the Oryx.”

  Paul nodded in agreement.

  “The other one is frozen methane. To stay liquid, it has to be at minus one-sixty degrees C.”

  “That’s natural gas,” Jimmy said.

  “Right.”

  “That stuff is explosive,” Jimmy said. “It’s a big safety issue in a coal mine.”

  “Yes it is, but there’s no air. That way, it can’t combust,” Catie said. “You just need to be careful not to introduce any oxygen into the environment and not to melt it so much that turns into gas and floats away.”

  “And the third one?” Paul asked.

  “That’s a more typical mining job,” Catie said. “It’s mostly iron, which is what we need. It’s hard like you would expect, so it takes a lot of effort to drill into.”

  “Okay, what do you want the iron to be like when we put it in that Oryx?” Paul asked.

  “Right now, before we ship it up to the station, we grind it up and mix in a little oil,” Catie said. “Then we can pump it like a slurry into the Oryx, and we can dump it into space where it freezes up into a ball.”

  “How pure does it have to be?” Paul asked.

  “Purer is better,” Catie said. “We’ll purify it on the other end, but we don’t want to be hauling a bunch of rock around if we can avoid it.”

  “Sounds like if we break it up into small bits and sift it, that would work?” Paul asked.

  “Yes, but you’ll need to figure out how to sift it without gravity,” Catie said.

  Paul scratched his head for a bit, “Hmm, wouldn’t blowing it with air be the same?”

  “I think so,” Catie said. “The iron will have more inertia, so it won’t start moving as fast. The light stuff will pick up speed right away. If you gave it a small crosswind, you might find it works better.”

  “Okay, we’ll try that stuff,” Paul said. “How long do we have to figure this out?”

  “As long as it takes,” Blake said. “We’re in a hurry, but sometimes slow is fast.”

  “You got that right,” Paul said. “Measure twice, cut once, my pappy always said.”

  The six of them spent another hour talking about what they might need, how things would work, even things as mundane as what they could eat when in space. Then Blake took the two of them to get measured for their spacesuits.

  Chapter 9

  Space Experiments

  “Liz,” Catie pinged her friend over her comm.

  “I’m just about to head your way,” Liz replied.

  “No, wait. Can you bring me one of your shipsuits?”

  “Sure, is something wrong with yours?”

  “I don’t know, but they won’t fit.”

  “Did you try a different one?”

  “Yes, I tried them all. None of them will fit. I haven’t worn one for a few weeks, but what could have happened to them?”

  “I’ve got one of my spares, I’ll be right over,” Liz said.

  When Liz arrived, Catie was in a dressing gown examining her shipsuit. “Here,” she said, handing Liz the shipsuit. “I don’t know what’s wrong with it.” She took the suit Liz offered and went back into her room to put it on.

  “It looks fine to me,” Liz called through the door.

  “Me too, but I can’t get it up over my hips,” Catie said. “Yours fits just fine,” she added as she came out of the room.

  “Well, mine are a little bigger,” Liz said. “Turn around.”

  Catie turned around once and then stood, looking at Liz, who was trying to hide her grin.

  “What?”

  “Catie, there’s nothing wrong with your shipsuit.”

  “Then why won’t it fit?”

  “You’re growing up, you’ve got hips,” Liz said as she started laughing.

  “Knock, Knock,” Natalia called out as she came into the condo. “What’s so funny?”

  Catie just stood there, looking at Liz furiously.

  “Our Catie is becoming a woman,” Liz said. “She’s got hips now.”

  “Oh, turn around,” Natalia said.

  Catie just stood there, glaring at them.

  “Come on girl, spin around for your Aunt Nattie,” Natalia said. “It’s about time you started filling out.”

  Reluctantly, Catie turned around.

  “Oh yes, much more woman there,” Natalia said. “How did you get your suit on?”

  “She didn’t,” Liz said, “that’s one of mine.”

  “Well, I’m going to have to keep an eye out for the boys,” Natalia said. “They’ll be chasing after her now.” Natalia was laughing with Liz.

  “It’s not funny!” Catie said.

  “No, it’s not,” Liz said. “What’s funny is your surprise and the fact that you’re not thrilled about it. I remember when I first started putting weight on my hips, I was thrilled. I was measuring them and my breasts every week to see how much they had grown.”

  “You too,” Natalia said. “Catie, you look great. You should get an appointment with Dr. Metra to make sure all is okay, but it’s perfectly natural. You are almost fourteen, after all.”

  “How big are they going to get?” Catie asked.

  “Just look at your mother,” Liz said, “Take off a few pounds because she doesn’t exercise as much as you do, and that should be about right. Your dad’s mother is about the same.”

  “Come on, let’s go,” Natalia said. “They’ll be waiting on us.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  When Catie, Liz, and Natalia boarded the Oryx, they heard Blake talking to the miners. “Are you guys ready for this?” Blake asked.

  “As ready as we can be,” Jimmy said. “Is this going to be like that vomit comet thing they talk about on TV?”

  “I hope not,” Blake said. “Everyone reacts differently.”

  “We haven’t had that many people get sick,” Catie said. “The pilot is able to ease off the acceleration slowly, so there’s not an abrupt transition like on a rollercoaster.”

  “Well, we hope to do well,” Paul said. “We don’t want to embarrass our families by getting sick.”

  “Just keep a barf bag handy,” Catie said. “What have you guys been doing to prepare?”

  “We brought some tools,” Jimmy said. “Blake, here, says we can practice on one of those blobs you talked about being up here.”

  “Oh, that’s a good idea,” Catie said. “It’s close so you can go into the space station for a rest. They have a little bit of gravity there.”

  “We’ll see,” Jimmy said. “You guys coming up just to help us out?”

  “We’re going to help you get started,” Catie said, “then Nattie has some experiments to run for her job.”

  “Oh, what job is that?” Paul asked.

  “I’m working on getting us a functioning treatment plant up here,” Natalia said.

  “You mean like sewage treatment?” Paul asked.

  “Yes, glamorous isn’t it,” Natalia said.

  “Well, it needs to be done,” Paul said. “What do you have to test?”

  “We need to have something that can survive a few days of microgravity,” Natalia said. “We have a reference design on Delphi City, but it can rely on gravity being there. We also want to recover more from it since we’re so far away from everything.”

  “Sounds complicated
,” Paul said.

  “Everybody, strap in,” the pilot announced over the intercom.

  “Hey, Jason,” Catie said over the comm.

  “Hi, Catie,” Jason said. “Do you want to come up front?”

  “Sure, I’ll be right there,” Catie said. “Hi, how are you doing?”

  “I’m doing great,” Jason said. “I’m working on qualifying on the Fox now. But this is my day job.”

  The copilot indicated to Catie that he would be happy to move into the navigator’s seat. Catie gave him a nod, and he moved, letting her take the seat next to Jason.

  “I haven’t flown for like six weeks,” Catie said.

  “That doesn’t sound like you.”

  “I know, there’s just been so much going on,” Catie said. “My mom’s here now so that’s a bit of extra drama. And I’ve just had so many projects going.”

  “Sounds like you need a break,” Jason said. “Mrs. Michaels is hosting another movie night next weekend. Are you coming?”

  “My mom’s going to make me go,” Catie said.

  “Oh, you had fun last time.”

  “I guess I did. Is Annie going to be there?”

  “I think so,” Jason said. “I never got a chance to thank you for letting me take her up.”

  “No problem,” Catie said. “Glad to help. Nice takeoff there,” Catie complimented Jason on his flying. “By the way, we’ve got a couple of newbies back there, can you really ease us into orbit?”

  “Sure,” Jason said. “I’d rather not smell vomit anyway.”

  “Me either,” Catie said. “Thanks. I’m going to go back and work with Nattie, we’ve got some tests to run when we get up there.”

  “Okay, hope to see you at the party.”

  “Sure.”

  Catie worked her way back into the cargo hold. As she came out of the airlock, she saw that Natalia was sitting with Paul, and they were talking about her experience on the asteroid mission. Catie sat next to Liz, “They’re working hard.”

  “What?” Liz said.

  “Nattie’s helping Paul get ready for his spacewalk,” Catie said.

  “Girl, get a clue,” Liz said. “He likes her.”

  “What!”

  “He likes her. He’s been keeping her talking the whole time. No man is that interested in what someone else is saying unless it involves a little romance.”