Habitats (an Ell Donsaii story #7)

by Dahners, Laurence

  “What about toxins, explosives and flammables?”

  “Well, as you can imagine, that’s a much tougher problem. A lot of those substances are volatile and we can pick them up through the microscopic ‘sampling’ port on each port we sell, but surveillance of all those ports is nearly impossible. Brian had a great idea though,” she waved at him ans fed at hd he looked embarrassed. “We contracted out with a chemistry research firm and they’ve sold us an insulating compound that dissolves in most organics. Once it dissolves, a couple of wires make contact and that disrupts the port’s circuit. In other words, ports not made to transport flammables become non-functional in contact with most, though not all, flammables.” She tilted her head, “So… we’re trying to push everyone to powering things with electricity delivered through ports by wire rather than with flammables. Companies transporting petroleum products for manufacturing or power plants only get ports that must be stationary relative to one another. We’ve essentially stopped selling ports that will move flammables to car companies, boat companies and propeller driven aircraft companies. We only sell ‘mobile-flammable’ ports to jet aircraft manufacturers and rocketry companies.” She grinned, “Our devious Brian,” she darted another glance at him, “had another great idea there. The mobile-flammable ports have to be mounted in place with our proprietary epoxy that has just the right resistance for some contacts on the surface of the port. That epoxy will tear loose those little contact wires on the surface of the port if someone tries to dismount it. So they won’t work unless you mount them with our epoxy and if you dislodge them from the epoxy, they stop working. So, essentially, you can’t take them back out of the plane once they’re installed and still have them work.”

  Brian raised his hand, “Actually you can, you just have to cut out the entire mounting surface with the port, but we’re hoping it takes a long time for terrorists to figure that out.”

  Vivian shrugged, “That still leaves us with problems. You may be aware that someone recently published their plan for modification of a Smith and Wesson pistol that would be able to fire ten thousand rounds before someone had to refill the hopper back home in the closet?”

  “Yeah, and I’ve heard that the military has similar plans?”

  Fred Marsden snorted, “Yeah, every military in the world has been calling. They want ports to fuel their ships and planes, resupply ammunition, send power out to the field. Even the lowly infantryman needs ports.”

  “Infantry?”

  “Oh yeah. You know that soldiers in the field can be expected to carry 60-80 pounds of supplies? Turns out that a lot of that stuff can be supplied by port instead, making the soldier much more mobile. And they all want to be able to fire a mortar or RPG at their enemies that doesn’t explode immediately. No they want it to pop open and deliver a port. The port delivers an enormous cloud of methane or propane, and they follow it with a spark. Boom, fuel air explosion!”

  Ell frowned, “How have you been answering those queries?”

  “Our own military gets some kinds of ‘military grade’ port tech. Other countries get the run around. None of them are getting high velocity flammable ports. But it’s getting to be a problem. You’re probably aware that a few murders have been committed using port technology. Knives stuck though ports, cyanide, etc. We’re worried that bad people are starting to recognize their potential. The government is too. They’ve started to include ports in security screens at airports and such.diesuch.

  “We’ve massively increased security at the plant to prevent theft but I’m starting to worry about the safety of our personnel. So far we’ve been very careful to compartmentalize the knowledge needed to build a working port. We estimate that you’d have to combine the knowledge of more than ten of our employees to have much of a chance to build your own port, and that even then a lot of experimentation would be needed. But that doesn’t mean someone won’t try. I also find it distasteful that our facility is looking more and more like a prison camp. And, prison camp aside, I worry about kidnappings of our personnel away from work.”

  Ell sighed and ran her hands through her short reddish blond hair. “Crap! I’ve been worried that this kind of stuff would raise its ugly head. Anyone have any good ideas?”

  Roger waved a hand, “I’ve been thinking. You know we’ve worked a way to open a port over a distance of a few millimeters without a port on the other end?”

  Ell shot a look at Roger, startled that he’d bring this up. She looked around the group. “These ‘single ended’ ports Roger’s talking about are a pretty well kept secret. Please don’t spread this news around.”

  The rest of the group stared at them in astonishment. Fred said, “When will Portal Tech start making these?”

  “Maybe never, they could be pretty dangerous.”

  “How?”

  Ell waved at Roger who said, “Probably the best beneficial use for them would be to deliver drugs like insulin without injections. Similarly they could be used to deliver euphoric drugs without needle tracks, or toxins for untraceable murders. Just opening a port inside certain parts of your body like the brain can do significant harm. Everything is a double edged sword. Ell, I and Emma have had implants put in the subcutaneous tissues under our ears using single ended ports which was great. Just open a single ended port into the fat there and push in the implant. No scars, hardly any pain.”

  Fred frowned, “What kind of implants?”

  Roger said, “Ones that let us communicate with our AIs even if we lose our headbands. Essentially they contain a little microphone and speaker combo.”

  Ell said, “They’re pretty ‘lo-fi’ because you’re listening to sound transmitted through the fat surrounding the implant, but you can understand it and it can pick up your speech and some sound from your surroundings. It even has a little GPS antenna so your AI can determine where you are.”

  Roger nodded. “So you guys at least should get the same. Maybe your families? It’s pretty painless and if you got kidnapped your AI would be able to tell us it happened and where you’re located so we can try to rescue you.”

  Ell looked around, “We could offer the same to your employees, but since we want to keep the ‘one ended’ ports a secret, they probably should be implanted surgically.” She shrugged, “Think about it.”

  Rob Braun waved a hand, “I want one. I also have a suggestion.”

  Ell raised an eyebrow at him.

  “As you know we’re working on a space station and planning a pretty large space habitat. I’m thinking it would be nice to move the parts of our business that might be subject to spying or sabotage out to the habitat?”

  Suddenly there were a lot of raised eyebrows around the table. Fred said, “Really?! How close are you to doing something like that?”

  Rob shrugged, “Depends how hard we want to push, and of course, on what our investors are willing to put up to get us there faster. You may know we bought an old freight version Boeing 747. It’s out on D5R’s island being converted into a spacecraft. We’ve pressure tested it and are currently installing the rocket engines. One of its first missions will be to fly up an inflatable space station.”

  Vivian frowned, “Inflatable? That doesn’t sound very safe!”

  Rob smiled, “Actually some of the modules of the Space Station have been inflated for a long time. They’re made of multiple layers of ballistic fabric like Kevlar and Vectran and when they’re inflated they feel as hard as concrete. Layers of fiber are more resistant to micrometeors than metal. Even the aluminum modules of the Station are mostly sheathed in ballistic fabric for that kind of protection. So we had one of the companies that make them assemble us a cylindrical module, 150 feet in diameter and 130 feet long because we can just squeeze one that size into the 747 after we suck all the air out of it. Just inside the outer layers we’ll have fifteen feet of water for radiation protection and thermal stability. This’ll leave us with a usable cylindrical interior space that’s 120 feet in diameter and 100 feet long. T
hat’s 1.1 million cubic feet, the same amount of space you’d find in a 135,000 square foot building.”

  “Holy crap,” someone muttered.

  Another asked, “What do you mean by ‘thermal stability?’”

  Things out in space get really hot on the sunny side and icy cold on the shadowed side. Water would freeze on the shady side and melt on the sunny side; circulating the water around will even the temps out.”

  Ell said, “It sounds pretty good in terms of safety from micrometeors and radiation but weightlessness is a problem all by itself.”

  Braun said, “Once we’re confident in the first module, step two would be to put up two smaller modules, each 85 feet in diameter and 130 feet long. They’ll be connected to the first one with 250 meter long tubes and spun around a hub at about a revolution per minute. That will generate nearly 0.3 gravities of acceleration which should keep you pretty healthy.”

  Fred blinked, “Wait a minute; that much water is going to weigh a lot. How much tension is going to be on the tubes?”

  Ell shrugged, “The water would mass a little over 14,000 metric tons, but at 0.28 gravities it would exert under 4,000 tons force.”

  Braun gaped at Ell, “Did you just do that in your head/spin your?”

  Ell blushed and shrugged, “The formulas are pretty simple.”

  Braun snorted, but then turned back to Fred. “Yeah, about 4,000 tons force which we could support with straps having a total cross section 130 square centimeters if they were made of Vectran, though we’d need more for safety overdesign and to compensate for degradation. We’re working on trying to get some of the folks making boron nitride, or carbon nanotubes, or graphene to ramp up if they can. We could get down under 10 square centimeters with that stuff if they can make it in quantity.”

  Fred frowned, “Really? It’s that strong?” He glanced doubtfully around at the group.

  Ell said, “Yeah, Those materials are astonishingly strong, though they’re hard to get in large quantities and anything we use is susceptible to radiation damage. So we’d want to overdesign, use redundant straps and plan regular replacement for stuff that, if it broke, would shoot some of our folks off on a tangent to the rotation. Probably should have some kind of lifeboat craft attached to the modules in case said tangent puts them into a re-entry trajectory.”

  Braun said, “And, if that works in LEO (low earth orbit) then we’d like to build a real habitat out at L5.”

  Ell raised an eyebrow, “Real habitat?”

  Braun grinned, “Something with a full gravity and tens of thousands of people.”

  Ell said “Okaay.” She turned to the group, “And you should see their ‘construction workers.’” She raised an eyebrow.

  Brian said, “Wait, you’ve already hired construction workers? I wanted to apply!”

  Ell grinned, “You can work a few shifts out there if you want, without ever leaving North Carolina.” She waited until they’d all looked puzzled a moment, “They’ve been building waldoes! They let me try one out. It’s a lot like you’re out there!” She turned to Ben, “You have video to show them, right?”

  ***

  Carter walked down the stairs feeling the butterflies in his stomach. After dithering over what to wear to an interview for “a physics major with construction experience,” he had finally dressed in nice slacks, a button up shirt and a sports coat.

  Jenny jumped up from the table and ran to give him a hug. “You look good Daddy. I’m sure they’ll give you the job!”

  Carter bent down to hug her in return, “I hope so honey.”

  A young woman at the ET Resources facility interviewed Carter in surprising depth. Interviews he had had for construction jobs in the past certainly had never been anything like this. “Why didn’t he intend to go on to grad school?**

  “No… uh, I don’t mind.”

  Carter found himself seated on a saddle with his feet in stirrups. She strapped a glittering, all-encompassing HUD over his eyes and put gloves on his hands. In the HUD it looked like he was in a metal room. He could see a pair of mechanical hands. When he moved his hands in the gloves the mechanical hands did just what he did. He thought, playing some kind of video game is part of this interview?

  The young lady said, “If you’ll look down?” Carter did and saw an adjustable wrench on a metal table in front of him. A nut was on a threaded rod sticking out of the table and an empty rod stuck out of the table next to it. She said, “If you’d just take the nut off the one bolt and screw it onto the empty bolt?”

  To himself he said, Really?! Outwardly, he said, “OK,” and picked up the wrench. The mechanical fingers were kind of clumsy but he was impressed to realize that they gave him feedback. When he squeezed the wrench the gloves gave him the feeling that he really had something in his fingers. However, the wrench was stuck to the table. He almost said something, but then it came loose and nearly floated away. Hah! The wrench is magnetized to stick to the table and the environment is supposed to be weightless! He managed to catch the wrench before it floated away completely. Adjusting it to fit the nut turned out to be difficult with the slightly clumsy mechanical hands. Then he wondered if the nut was so tight that he needed the wrench and tried to loosen it with his fingers. It wouldn’t come, so he applied the wrench and loosened it. Once loose, it came the rest of the way using just the fingers of the mechanical hand with which he began to feel more and more comfortable. When it came loose from the threaded rod he was ready for it to float away and able to catch it. He moved it to the other rod, screwing it back down and tightening it with the wrench.

  Next she had him weld a seam with the mechanical hands. To his surprise this seemed easier than welding in person. He didn’t have to wear gloves or a dark helmet. The HUD just didn’t make the welding arc all that bright and everything else stayed at normal brightness. When he finished he noted with amusement that the “videogame” designers had invested enough time in the realism of the display that the mechanical hands and table showed little marks from the stray sparks of the welder.

  His final task, to his amazement, was simply to toss a rock from one hand to the other and back. It was harder than expected; both because he was doing it with the mechanical hands and because the game followed weightless rules so the rock didn’t arc back down toward the table. He nearly missed the first toss, but the return toss went fine.

  They gave him the, “Don’t call us; we’ll call you,” routine and sent him home wondering if the “ET” in “ET Resources” stood for “extraterrestrial?” His AI did a search and to his delight discovered that it was a company spun off by D5R, the place made famous by the fact that Ell Donsaii helped found it. They were using Donsaii’s little rockets to explhtnkets toore space.

  Maybe, this interview had something to do with working in space? The thought both excited and terrified him. He would love to do that kind of work, but didn’t think he could leave Abby and Jennifer to go work up in some kind of metal can out in space. He assumed the metal room in the videogame was supposed to represent some kind of space station workshop…?

  ***

  Shan climbed down the stairs from the Learjet and onto the tarmac while gazing wonderingly around at the beautiful Caribbean waters surrounding the little island. He and Raquel had gotten on the plane in North Carolina, but shortly into the flight she’d gone into the bathroom and washed “Raquel” off, reappearing as Ell. As he and Ell cleared the stairs, a couple of burly guys headed up to start unloading the equipment that had filled much of the rest of the small plane. Ell walked off toward a big house done in light blue with white trim. It had a huge airy porch. Shan trotted a few steps to catch up. “So they let you catch rides down here anytime you want?”

  She grinned up at him, “As long as I’m caught up on my work, the boss lets me enjoy the perks. The plane was coming down here anyway. D5R needs the island for its space research and keeps the guest house open for the people who are working on the island. So the incremental cost of letting
us come down and enjoy ourselves isn’t much. Besides,” she arched an eyebrow, “D5R’s got to keep their CSO happy, you know.”

  Thirty minutes later, after they’d taken a room on the top floor of the “guest house,” Ell disappeared into the bathroom to wipe the bronzers off the rest of her body. On the plane she’d only done her face and hands. She’d emerged wearing a gauzy, cute beach cover-up. Watching her lithe form as she moved around gathering up snorkels, masks and fins took Shan’s breath away. As he had so many times before, he found it difficult to believe that such an amazing person enjoyed sharing her life with him. And, my God, sooo beautiful! The mind boggled to think that the Raquel he fell in love with was also the Ell that he so much admired.

  Standing back up festooned with gear she said, “Hey, you going snorkeling with me or not?”

  Startled out of his reverie, Shan stood, “Whoops, sorry, let me get my suit on.”

  As they scampered across the hot sand to the water Shan said, “Hey, you aren’t going to embarrass me with some kinds of incredible swimming feats are you?”

  “Oh no!” she laughed delightedly. “I’m a terrible swimmer. I don’t have any endurance and swimming is hard work. Besides,” she cast him a chagrined look, “I sink.”

  She pulled off the cover-up, revealing a tiny pale blue bikini that took his breath away. Shan loved the way that, though she didn’t look muscle-bound by any means, her muscular definition was easy to see. She definitely didn’t have a lot of fat tWhlot of o help her float.

  Ell splashed happily into the water, “Come on slowpoke, you’ve got to see some of the fish they have here! Take this.” She tossed something to him.

  He looked at it. It was the mouthpiece of a snorkel, without the snorkel? Oh, I’ll bet it has a port! Sure enough, when he put it in his mouth he could easily breathe through it, despite the area where the snorkel would normally turn upwards being completely sealed. When he got into the water he could breathe without any trouble in the shallow water. Water didn’t water splash in like it would with a snorkel tube. This is great! More like scuba than snorkeling, except he couldn’t go very deep because the air wasn’t pressurized.