Critical Error: Book 3 of the Leaving Earth series

by Kaal Alexander Rosser

  They would all go up to Grum's office for this, and use however many screens gave the best view. Grum suspected that it would be just one, given that his office was not exactly huge.

  Clait had brought along his calendar with all the colouring in — which he had graciously let Ju do a little of — and Ju had brought along his five metre swimming badge.

  It was a good show-and-tell by the kids, and everyone had a laugh at the near-weightless antics Stew and Amy put on. That took up the first ten minutes of the slot before they had to get on to the reason USSMC was paying for the call. Rather than bore the boys, Vann took them down to the daycare centre, and Hank was called in to get the update with Grum.

  The long and short of that meeting was that the teams were happy enough with the initial designs, though each team had alterations they wanted taken into account after practical experience on the moon.

  The only major concern everyone had was that the testing for the nuclear reactors was taking too long. The teams did not feel that anything they were doing in regards to the Main UMB build, UMBRA, or the new AM production plant would only be put into use until they were long gone from the programme.

  Grum let Hank field that concern, seeing as it had been his notion to build augmented third generation reactors. It was not exactly news, as that had been part of their briefing, but the board approval and official "go" was hot off the press. There was visible relief from both Amy and Stew as they were told that they were now allowed to tell the teams about the new plans, before they all departed.

  Stew and Amy would be expected home in a couple of days.

  The changing UMBRA plans meant that Grum spent most of the "Steve day" expanding the remit to cover places where technically-third generation reactors already had fourth generation features, or where there were plans to build them. Also, he was of a mind to tell Steve Branch that he was willing to look at deals where the deal-breaker until now had been over intellectual property and/or research.

  Lastly, he wanted Steve to pull out all the stops in getting the Nevada solar PV going. If there were any roadblocks or delays, he wanted to deal with them in the quickest way possible. He reminded Steve that this was not about getting the best possible deal for any of these technologies or power generation plants. Capacity was key. All the deals he was brokering were aimed at two things: AM production, and UMBRA. Anything he was asked to put on the table was not beyond possibility.

  It was a strong statement. When Grum sent the message to Steve, the reply told Grum that Steve took it as such.

  Chapter 10

  STEW was back in at work after only taking one rest day, despite Grum's assurance that he could take more.

  'I had a month's holiday before I left for the orbital, Grum. I'm fine!'

  'Just make sure you don't tell Amy different or I'll get it in the neck.'

  'As if I would! So, about the boys… They looked like the were behaving like little angels when they were on the screen, but you looked a bit haggard, man. How was it?'

  Grum recapped. Not leaving anything out. 'So, when you saw them, they were at the pinnacle of their behaviour. I'm sorry to say that most of the fault between the two of them lies with Ju, and therefore me.'

  'Oh, don't be daft. You don't think that Clait can be a little sod? Or that I haven't had the urge to throttle him for a fraction of a second? If you really don't then you are daft.'

  'It does make it feel a bit better, although it shouldn't.'

  'Don't sweat it. I like the solution you did come up with for the calendar thing, though. I'll have to remember it for later situations.'

  'Feel free.'

  'So, have you decided about having another, then?'

  'I need to talk to Vann, first, mate. Can't make the call until then.'

  'Good luck. Whichever way you decide to go.'

  Stew looked into his mug, then held it in front of himself, waggling it. 'Refill?'

  Grum looked into his own mug, tipped the dregs down his throat and held the mug out to Stew. 'Please.'

  Neither spoke until Stew sat back down and handed Grum his refilled mug back.

  'Cheers, mate,' said Grum, accepting the mug.

  'Now, what's this I hear about you taking the gloves off Steve Branch in his negotiations?'

  'Probably all true. He's not really out there to make an extra few cents per kilowatt-hour, no matter what the board think. He's out there to get generating capacity and to enable nuclear power research. That's it.'

  'Fair point. Do the board know?'

  'If and when the board find out, I'll deal with it. Right now we need him to be making the deals which enable the top priority programmes — a priority also set by the board, mark you.'

  'OK. So, I can tell you that we're now involved with most of the third generation builds in the US which incorporate some type of fourth gen tech. We're also well on the way to getting involved with every positive-looking project for fourth gen and upwards in the continental US, and working on the rest of the world.'

  'Cool. By the way, I know about the app, you don't have to remember everything before you come in.'

  'Also… What? The app? Oh, the app. Yeah, I guessed you'd figure that out after seeing the department.'

  'Actually, Steff told me.'

  Stew shrugged. 'In any case, it helps me to get things in my head straight if I don't refer to the app while I'm telling you.'

  'Fair enough. Go on, then.'

  'So… Where was I? Oh, yes, also, the Nevada state government are very happy with the deal you made about technology sharing with them.'

  'I made?'

  'Through Steve.'

  It was Grum's turn to shrug. 'He bet that I would put my money where my mouth is. Good call, I'd say.'

  'So you'll honour it?'

  'When I've seen the full text of the agreement, probably. I'll trust Steve not to land me completely in it.'

  'He didn't, but the board are sure to freak out over this one. We've got ten or fifteen photovoltaics patents that we've held for years involved in this.'

  'Were we using them?'

  'No, but…'

  'Then I don't care. The board can argue all they want, but they'll have to fire me and piss off the Nevada state government if they want to back out of it.'

  Stew's eyes widened. 'You're playing hardball, again?'

  'Gotta. The board are getting too comfy, and they are being too cautious. They also have the misguided notion that IP in the hand is worth two in the field, which is crap. With this stuff being proven in the field, research can move on rather than stagnating. So can the market.'

  'OK. I'll support your play, you know that. You sure, though?'

  'Positive.'

  'Then you'll enjoy this one. Nevada state government has agreed to buy in extra power incrementally as the new solar arrays come online, with two caveats. One, that the in-state consumption ratio does not drop below twenty five percent renewable. Two, that they will only buy in a matched amount of kilowatt-hours as the arrays are generating.'

  'OK. Sounds good. What's the price?'

  'That's the "good" bit. They want fee-free access to our IP library on renewables.'

  'Has he signed off on this one?'

  'Not yet. He sent me a message, saying "find out if he's absolutely sure he wants to pull the trigger on this". So are you?' Stew's expression was decidedly challenging.

  'Yep. I'd say that was exactly the kind of thing I had in mind when I told him what I needed. Good work.' Grum could not help but feel a frisson of apprehension as he said that.

  'You're certifiable, you know that?'

  'Thank you, darling. Was that it?'

  'One other thing. In response to our unprecedented good will they are going to foot the entire bill for the distribution network.'

  'They may think they are,' said Grum.

  Stew sighed. 'What now?'

  'Standard copper is too lossy. We've already got superconducting cabling to the two nearest substations. I want
to push that further. Distribute the load more, and reduce the incoming losses.'

  'Why not build our own substation?!' said Stew, sarcasm dripping from his every word.

  'If you think that would help.'

  'For crying out loud, Grum!'

  'Look, Stew, you're not getting it. I don't care what's needed to get this going. It's all small-fry. If we need to develop an entirely new superconducting substation and outfit the whole of Nevada, I really, really, don't care! By comparison to what we're doing this for, it's peanuts!'

  Stew rocked back. 'You're right. It's crazy. But you're right.'

  'Go do all the things, Stew. I'm going to be hear waiting for the screams.'

  There were no screams that day. So either no-one on the board was reading emails, or they were all too shell-shocked to find a response. Or they were having an emergency meeting to figure out how to get rid of him. It did not matter. Everything was on track.

  Plus, he and Vann had gone out for lunch together. It started out nervous, but once they both worked out they were nervous over the same thing, everything fell into place. Neither of them wanted another child. Ju was just the perfect amount of joy and hassle.

  Chapter 11

  THE screams did start, but from an unexpected quarter. He did not know if the board were comatose or were having real trouble finding a way to squash him, but he did not hear a peep out of them. Nor did he get a summons from Kelvin, though he had expected at least an email asking who was going to pay for everything.

  But no. None of that. The screams he heard were immediately after the Nevada Antimatter Power Facility announced that they had finished testing and had put collider D into full operation.

  The screams which Grum heard was the phrase "WHERE'S MY STUFF?" repeated over and over again from everyone who had outstanding orders. What he found curious and annoying was that these included external customers like the government. He could suppose that as he was playing fast and loose with the rulebook, so might some of the board members. He thought that a couple of them might just have let slip to a couple of favoured clients that they were "increasing capacity". Fair enough.

  Despite the priorities the board had set, Grum knew that they would only see the numbers of units shipped and the margin — both at individual and aggregate. Unless they got other experts in to analyse the numbers, he could probably talk his way round any questions they put, so, he put some thought into what priorities he wanted to set for Ben.

  He did not like to micromanage the facility, especially as Ben was doing a fine job on his own. Until now, he had simply passed on the vague directives of the board and let Ben deal with the actual numbers. But he was going to have to play some short term games with Ben's schedule and they were not all going to be completely logical from the perspective of optimum performance.

  First: the quotas. The governmental orders had been given around forty percent of the overall capacity, commercial about the same, and the remaining twenty percent going to USSMC internal. That was Ben's entirely sensible interpretation of the board's order to give priority to governmental and commercial orders. Divvy up the collider run time and fill as many orders as possible with that time. No problem with that, as far as Grum could see, except that it did not now meet his objectives. At least one of which was to piss off the board even more.

  He thought about the phrasing of the board's directive. It was: "…commercial and governmental confirmed orders be prioritised over USSMC internal ones". He thought he saw some wiggle room, there. His app which calculated pod sizes and costs would also calculate lead times. So if he worked out the lead times for each of the governmental orders, and for each class of commercial order, he should be able to work out how much of the overall backlog was thirty four percent of the orders — still a priority — and schedule that over the year…

  The governmental orders would take just twenty percent of the run-time, and by happy coincidence, increase the immediate profit margin on the governmental account. For the commercial orders, the priority orders — with the new definition — would take just under thirty percent of the run-time. Leaving fifty percent capacity unclaimed. Grum claimed it for Space Division, until someone told him otherwise. He sent an email to that effect to Ben, saying that this was a new interpretation of the board's wishes, and given the USSMC priority on the UMBRA programmes, please implement immediately. He did not want Ben to get backlash from it, so he made it a direct order.

  He got a private message back.

  That was JFDI, wasn't it?

  Yes, sorry. Can't say more. I'm dealing with your Actuarial Compliance.

  Got it.

  Actuarial Compliance was a code between Ben, Stew, and himself. It was a nonsense phrase, but sounded authentic. Even if you know what the words really meant, it sounded plausible, and for what it really meant it was actually quite apposite. Grum was pleased with it. It meant Arse Coverage. So now Ben knew that if he followed Grum's somewhat strange orders, neither he nor his staff would get into trouble for it. Good enough.

  He was reasonably sure that no-one outside of Core Power would realise what he was doing until it had already been done.

  The other screams he heard were from headlines which Steve Branch had pointed in his direction. They were mainly about how USSMC was funding dirty nuclear power, and a call to boycott their products.

  He certainly hoped that this had not been leaked from the board. If it had, then someone on the board was not playing with a full deck. This could actually be serious trouble, and not just for Grum. He needed to talked to Steve Branch about this, then probably Stew would want a word with him.

  Steve was not answering his phone. Just when he needed to seriously call on his expertise.

  Grum's office door opened, and Stew walked in. 'Got Steve with me. He'll be here in a minute. Someone called him.'

  Of course you have. 'Come in, grab a coffee, sit down, and tell me what you know.'

  'Well,' Stew began as he went to fill up his mug, 'I know someone has been playing silly buggers with Ben's schedule…' Grum watch the mug change and groaned, putting his face in his hands. 'You energy?'

  Grum nodded without lifting his head. 'Every time!'

  'I know, right?' Stew laughed.

  Grum lifted his face from his hands and glared at Stew. 'I ought to ban that mug. And yes, I have been messing with Ben's schedule…' Steve Branch walked in at that moment and Grum changed the direction of the sentence without missing a beat. '…but I've dealt with his Actuarial Compliance so there shouldn't be a problem.'

  'Actuarial Compliance?' asked Steve.

  'It's just a thing for Nevada,' said Grum, offhandedly. 'In, coffee, sit, talk. What do you know about this thing you sent me?' Grum put the headline up on the main screen.

  'It's just what it looks like,' said Steve as he went to get a mug of coffee for himself.

  'We're being boycotted?' asked Stew, and Grum caught a wink in his direction. He assumed that was in acknowledgement of the Arse Coverage and swift change of direction.

  'Probably not. Not if it stays at this level. You could could make a reactor which ran on a lump of granite bathed in sea water — both mildly radioactive substances, as I understand it — and some of the hard-liners would not care. If the words "nuclear" and "reactor" appear in its name, it must be dirty, and dangerous to the environment.'

  'It's not the same thing,' said Grum, somewhat reprovingly, 'but I take your point. They have valid concerns about standard third generation reactors, in my opinion, but then we're not looking to build any of those on Earth.'

  'Oh boy, I hope you never say that in public. I can understand what you want to do, but some of the same people protesting are also the people who believe in the healing power of lumps of quartz, and that the moon has her own mystical energy.' Steve was obviously concerned that Grum would not realise what a comment like that would do to USSMC's image, if Grum made it in public.

  'Don't worry, Steve, I don't intend to blab about all t
he lovely nuclear power stations we're going to put on the moon.'

  'Good. But back to the point. Even here on Earth, they are not willing to distinguish between the generations of reactor. Well, that's a generalisation. But it's true of the ones who are protesting outside the fourth and fifth generation research sites. And even you did not know about the augmented thirds until you looked into it, so it's not unreasonable for people who really know nothing about nuclear science to get confused about the generations of reactor.'

  'All true, but how do we deal with it?'

  'Deal with it? We don't deal with it. We put out generic statements about the safety of the various testing sites, try and get some articles in the popsci press about the differences in reactor generations with some upbeat messaging about using old waste for fuel as a form of nuclear recycling. Then we put someone like me in a suit to stand in front of TV cameras and tell everyone that it's all OK, and – if the protesters would just read the literature – that their worries would be washed away. All true, apart from the last bit. Some of the protesters will never be satisfied with the science. Fortunately for us, they tend to be the type of protester who is least credible with the public at large.'

  'Is that it?'

  'Damage limitation, I'm afraid. Until it dies away. Oh, and I go poking my nose into places until I find out where the leak is.'

  'Good luck with that,' said Stew, grinning.

  'On this one? I'll need it. Too many potential holes.'

  'That's what I mean,' said Grum. 'You won't be able to trace it back to the source, I'm guessing.'

  'I might, but we'll have to see how it goes. The media machine is already in operation. It always is, of course, we just crank up the dial at times like this. You might need to find something as yet unpublished which we can use to get an article or two. If you haven't already given everything away, that is.'

  'You know precisely how much of precisely what has been given away.'