Delphi Nation (Delphi in Space Book 4)

by Bob Blanton

  “They’re available on the net, a good laugh while you’re working out,” Liz said. “You should watch a few.”

  “Cer Catie, they are funny,” ADI cut in.

  “You’ve watched them?” Liz asked with surprise.

  “Just now,” ADI said. “I’ve compiled a short video of the best outtakes with Boris and Natasha for you, Cer Catie. I will send it to your comm, I’m sure you will enjoy them.”

  “Thanks, ADI.”

  “You’re welcome,” ADI replied.

  “Okay, are you landing this thing or what?” Liz asked.

  “We’re on approach,” Catie said. “Hold your horses, Logan will wait.”

  Once they landed and taxied to the hangar, Liz did the shutdown while Catie went to the main cabin to let Frankie out of the plane. “What did you think?” she asked.

  “It’s a hot jet,” Frankie said. “I could really see me flying it. But I’d rather fly a combat jet.”

  “We don’t have any of those,” Catie lied. “You’ll have to settle for the Lynx if you want to fly with MacKenzie.”

  “I guess,” Frankie said. “Do you want to go to dinner?”

  “I can’t,” Catie said. “We have over an hour of paperwork to do before we’re done, and I’ve got work to do tonight with my uncle.” Catie didn’t want to tell Frankie that since Liz had a date, she didn’t have a bodyguard available tonight, so she was kind of grounded.

  “Can’t she do the paperwork for you?” Frankie asked.

  “No . . . it takes both of us to fill it out,” Catie said. “We have to sign each other’s reports.”

  “Then you owe me a dinner,” Frankie said.

  “Sure,” Catie said. “Maybe next week.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  “Daddy,” Catie said as she came into her father’s study.

  “Hey, Sweetie, what’s up?” Marc asked.

  “I need to talk to you about Dr. Zelbar,” Catie said.

  “What about the old coot?” Marc asked.

  “Well, he kind of figured a lot of stuff out when we went up to the space station,” Catie said.

  “I was afraid of that. What did he figure out?”

  “He figured out that we already have a superconductor. I explained to him that his superconductor was a thin-film one versus the thick-film one we’re using. His actually does look better than our existing thin-film one.”

  “Okay, that’s not too bad; was he upset?”

  “Just a little,” Catie said. “He also figured out we had to have asteroids.”

  Marc gave a big sigh, “I assume he heard the build schedule.”

  “Yes, it is kind of obvious if you think about it.”

  “Sure,” Marc said. “Anything else?”

  “He wants to move up to the station as soon as he can. Liz promised him one month.”

  “That will work,” Marc said, “Anything else . . . ?”

  “I think he’s pretty suspicious about everything. He said the more we tell him, the more he can help,” Catie said.

  “I’ll have to think about bringing him into the thick of it,” Marc said. “Maybe we should have him on the board.”

  “Nikola on the board would be better,” Catie suggested.

  “Yeah, that’s definitely a better choice,” Marc said, smiling at the thought of the board having to deal with crotchety old Dr. Zelbar. “Anything else?”

  “Yes,” Catie said tentatively, “Daddy, am I a know-it-all?”

  “Why would you ask that?”

  “I overheard some kid say that about me.” Catie had gotten Sophia to tell her what the kids at school said about her. She was a little hurt that they had that kind of attitude, especially since she didn’t spend that much time with them. She wondered where they got it from.

  “Well, you do tend to know everything,” Marc said, thinking that her eidetic memory was a double-edged sword.

  “You know that’s not what it means.”

  “No, I don’t think you’re a know-it-all,” Marc said.

  “Come on,” Catie pleaded.

  “Okay, you’re young, and as a young person, you’re not very patient.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “When someone asks a question or says something that’s incorrect, you’re very quick to answer or correct them. The rest of the people in the conversation are still processing the question by the time you answer.”

  “So?”

  “Well, other people might think you’re trying to show off how smart you are. You should try waiting to see if someone else has the answer. Think of yourself as the backstop. If nobody can figure it out, then you help the group move forward.”

  “Hmm,” Catie mused. “But doesn’t that mean the meetings will take longer?”

  “Like I said, impatient. If time is truly critical, then don’t wait. But time’s usually not that critical, and getting back to your latest project with ADI doesn’t count.”

  “Thanks, Daddy. I’m going to try that.”

  Chapter 17

  Board Meeting – Oct 14th

  “I call the meeting to order,” Marc said. “Why don’t we get an update on what’s happening with the space station?”

  “We are getting plenty of material,” Liz said. “We started extruding the first ring last week, and it should be done by the end of this week. After that, it will take three to four weeks to make it habitable.”

  “That’s good, I hear we have some very impatient people who are ready to move,” Marc said. Catie giggled at his quip.

  “So I’ve been told,” Liz said. “Natalia has the treatment plant up. She’s still tuning it, but it should be finished this week. She seems to be taking to the new job with enthusiasm.”

  “She has, Tomi really likes working with her. He says she learns fast and doesn’t make mistakes,” Catie said. “And she goes into space and lets him stay down here.”

  Blake chuckled, “I hear that was his first criterion for an assistant.”

  “Catie?” Marc prompted.

  “Nikola figured out how to separate the nickel from the iron as we feed it into the polysteel plasma,” Catie said. “That means we can now get most of our material from the asteroids. I’m having all but four of the Oryxes fitted with the space engines and reassigned to asteroid trips. We can always bring them back to doing lifts when we have a lot of material to lift.”

  “But that causes another issue,” Fred said. “We’re out of pilots who are cleared for knowing about the asteroids, as well as low on pilots due to the rotation rules for long- term space.”

  “That issue will ease itself when we have the first ring complete,” Liz said. “Then we can increase the spin, so we’ll have more gravity up there. If we go to 1.9 revs per minute, we’ll have one-G in the new ring. We can slow it down when we put the next ring in.”

  “Okay,” Marc said. “I’m thinking we wait for the third ring to be finished before we attach the second. It’s not like we’re overwhelmed with people wanting to move up there. That way, we only have to stop the spin twice. What else, Catie?”

  “Nikola has her process for transparent polysteel dialed in. We should be able to start making it soon. Then we can replace the glass on all the new comms. People keep dropping them,” Catie said. “Dr. Zelbar still has work to do on his superconductor, he thinks he can make it even thinner.”

  “How does thinner help us?” Liz asked.

  “It’s better for work on integrated circuits,” Catie said. “Thinner means we can make it narrower too, so higher density circuitry.”

  “Oh, that’s great,” Liz said.

  “Mrs. Michaels still has her grow pods running on the station. Last I checked with her, she said they were thriving. Are we ready to introduce the meat process?” Catie asked. “I’d be real happy to hand that off.”

  “Who would you hand it off to?” Marc asked.

  “Mrs. Michaels,” Catie said with a questioning glance at the admiral.

  “Meat process
?” Admiral Michaels asked.

  “You might not remember,” Marc said, “but we have a process that grows meat in a vat. We take a sample from a living animal, then we’re able to grow that into a fully developed muscle. The process works great for any meat, but doesn’t do well with bones, so no ribs.”

  “Just not yet,” Catie said. “I think someone will be able to figure that out. But the process is kind of like growing roots,” Catie said hopefully.

  “You can ask her,” Admiral Michaels said, “but I think she has her hands full with the hydroponic farming.”

  “Hey, one of our pilots is a farm boy with a degree in chemistry,” Fred said. “Maybe he would be interested.”

  Catie looked at her father. “Sure, ask him,” Marc said. “The meat process isn’t all that secret, you showed the rabbi and the imam already.”

  Fred nodded to Catie as he texted the contact info to her.

  “Anything else?” Marc asked.

  “Not on the space station,” Catie said.

  “Go ahead anyway,” Marc prompted.

  “We have the office, lab, and manufacturing area for the Vancouver team ready,” Catie said. “The construction crew is building it out now. It should be ready for them by next week.”

  “What grade did you get?” Blake asked.

  “An A,” Catie answered, her voice clearly indicating that he shouldn’t have needed to ask.

  “What about at the station?” Marc asked.

  “We’ve got the space allocated and closed in,” Liz said, “but they need to figure out how they want to arrange things as well as what equipment they need.”

  “Oh, that reminds me,” Catie interrupted.

  “What?” Marc asked.

  “We need to move a few fabricators up there,” Catie said. “They’re going to need some custom machines and parts, plus we can make a few comms.”

  “Okay,” Marc said. “Why don’t you move as many as you can.”

  “Okay, I’ll need to wait for Natalia to get back first,” Catie answered as she looked at Liz. Liz nodded that she would help.

  “Blake, how are our miners doing?” Marc asked.

  “They are loving it,” Blake said. “I never would have thought a bunch of hillbillies from West Virginia would take to space so well.”

  “Don’t let them hear you call them hillbillies,” Kal said.

  “That’s what they call themselves,” Blake said. “Anyway, they keep making improvements to the process. They’ve astounded me at how innovative they are.”

  “Why don’t we set them up with some kind of share of the operation?” Samantha asked. “They’re inventing new processes; they should share in the benefits.”

  “I’d be okay with that,” Marc said. “How would we set it up?”

  “Their salary plus ten percent of the value of the material they extract,” Samantha said. “They’d need to form a company so that the profits can be distributed correctly.”

  “Okay, why don’t you meet with Jimmy and set something up,” Marc said.

  Samantha nodded and made a note on her comm.

  “Admiral, where are you in your thinking about North Korea?” Marc asked.

  “I think you need to come up with a way to declaw them,” Admiral Michaels said.

  “How would we do that?” Marc asked.

  “First, they have two ballistic submarines. You were able to damage that Chinese submarine, could you do something similar to their two ballistic subs?” the admiral asked.

  Marc sucked in a breath and grimaced. “I have sent a Fox to the submarines’ home port,” he said. “I’ve had it put a mine on one of them and am waiting for the second one to show up. We can only manage a few mines, so I don’t know what to do about their other subs.”

  “Can’t you make more mines?” the admiral asked.

  “We can make lots of mines,” Marc said. “It’s the communication to control the mines that is the limiting factor. We have a very limited number of links, and we’re a long way from being able to make more. And before you ask, we’re not willing to share the details of the links.”

  The admiral shook his head, “That’s fine, but do you lose the links with every mine?”

  “No, we can recover the links,” Marc said. “But then we have to put them on another mine and deploy it. A pretty slow process.”

  “If you can take out their two ballistic subs, you can deal with the others later, they’re not that important,” Admiral Michaels said. “Since you were able to take out their missile launch, is there any way you can prevent them from launching anything from North Korea?”

  “We have already put that capability in place,” Marc said. “What should we do?”

  “If you just prevent any successful launch,” Admiral Michaels said, “then without their ballistic subs, they wouldn’t be able to threaten anyone besides China and South Korea. I wouldn’t worry about China, and I’m not sure what to do about South Korea. What kinds of missiles can you stop?”

  “It has to leave the atmosphere,” Marc said. “We can’t do anything about short-range missiles or cruise missiles.”

  “Then, I would suggest we take care of the submarines and launches. We’ll have to depend on the US and China to keep them under control beyond that,” Admiral Michaels said.

  “Moving on, have you had any success with contacts in France?” Marc asked.

  “I’ve put feelers out,” Admiral Michaels said. “My previous contacts are still in place, and I’m getting a lukewarm response. But, at least it’s not a cold response, so I’m hopeful.”

  “Okay, Sam, what about your contacts?” Marc asked.

  “We’ve reached out to Mexico and Morocco using our established contacts. They have both responded positively. Mexico is very interested in a fusion reactor,” Sam said. “And Kevin Clark is quite the diplomat. He’s made contacts with India and Indonesia. He says he’s optimistic they will recognize us. They’re both very interested in getting fusion power, but they want assurances that it’s real.”

  Marc nodded his head, “What about Germany?”

  “Herr Johansson has a contact, but he recommends we wait until after we announce to connect,” Samantha said.

  “Blake, how are our preparations coming?” Marc asked.

  “We’ve moved the airport,” Blake said. “I started moving it last week. Interestingly nobody except the pilots has noticed. We’ll start moving the city tomorrow. We don’t have that much traffic to Rarotonga anymore since everyone either lives here or stays here for the entire week, but the ferry pilots will notice, and the passengers will notice the longer ride.”

  “You’re moving the city?” Admiral Michaels asked.

  “Outside the territorial limit,” Marc explained. “We plan to announce our independence on Friday. We want to do it before we announce the fusion reactor, to short circuit any attempts to gain control after that announcement.”

  “Prudent,” the admiral said. “What are you doing about a constitution?”

  “Sam and I worked on a draft on our way to Paris and on the way back,” Marc said. “I’ll send it to each of you for review. Give Sam any suggestions or issues. She has a team of lawyers that she will work with to finalize it before we declare. You don’t have to read it, but it is an interesting exercise in thinking about what laws should apply and how you prevent some of the issues we see with the current governments.”

  “Okay, anyone have anything else?” Marc asked.

  “Yes, I have something,” Samantha said. “We have an application from a large group of Russians who want to emigrate to Delphi City.”

  “Russians,” Marc said with surprise.

  “Yes, most of them are Jews, but not all. I think a Jewish rabbi set it up and collected applicants. Everyone in the group has high-level skills; a large percentage speak at least some English,” Samantha continued.

  “Any reason we should say no?” Marc asked.

  “Captain,” ADI interrupted on a private
channel. “Based on my examination of their background, at least eight of them are likely Russian agents.”

  “Aren’t you worried about Russian agents?” Admiral Michaels asked.

  “Yes and no,” Marc replied. “We’ve found that we can keep track of agents better if they’re here.”

  “The Russians are quite adept at causing problems,” Admiral Michaels said, “and they will undoubtedly try to smuggle arms in.”

  “How is your bet going with the miner?” Marc asked Blake.

  “He’s O for five,” Blake said. “I think he’s decided to give up since the next one will cost him.”

  “Better we learn their methods when we’re watching,” Marc said.

  “As long as you understand the risk,” the admiral said.

  “Then let them in,” Marc said to Samantha.

  “Okay,” Samantha said. “There are some really good people in this group.”

  “Are we ready to adjourn now?” Marc asked.

  His answer came as everyone got up and started to leave.

  “Daddy,” Catie said once the room was clear.

  “Yes,” Marc replied.

  “I think you should talk to the Zelbars before you announce.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Marc said. “Why didn’t you bring it up in the meeting?”

  “I thought you should decide on your own,” Catie said. “It’s more personal with them than anyone else.”

  “Thank you.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  “Hello, I’m Catie,” Catie greeted Vince Clark. “Mr. Clark, are you any relation to Kevin and Jason Clark?”

  “I don’t think so,” Vince said. “It’s just a common name. Call me Vince. Fred tells me you have a farming job you’d like me to help with.”

  “Not exactly,” Catie said. “But it is a little like hydroponic farming.”

  “What’d ya need?”

  “I’m not sure you know, but we actually grow our meat,” Catie said.

  “We farmers usually say raise, but grow works,” Vince said.

  “No, I mean, we actually grow our meat, in vats.”

  “You’ve got me a bit confused there, what kind of vats?”

  “We start with a piece of muscle, put it in a vat, and flood the vat with artificial blood. That carries the nutrients to the muscle, and it grows,” Catie explained. “Eventually, veins, arteries, and nerves grow from the base tissues, and we keep pumping the blood like a heart would and stimulate the muscle via the nerves.