NFI: New Frontiers, Incorporated: Book 2, the New Frontiers Series

by Jack L Knapp

Dolph paused, deciding how he wanted to phrase his response. “I don’t know if he’s right. I tried to model that mathematically using the laptop, but I didn’t get anywhere. I trust the instruments, though. Your dosimeter and badges indicate lower levels of radiation, and the Geiger counter agrees. I think you’ll be protected as long as the impellers are functioning, but you don’t want to spend a lot of time in free fall.”

  “Simple solution to the free fall problem, Dolph,” said Pete. “Better crew cabin insulation. I read an article in an engineering journal; the Chinese are experimenting with a plastic foam that they infuse with metals and metalloids. The atoms are scattered throughout the foam, so the process doesn’t change the foam appreciably other than that most radiation is blocked. It doesn’t last, though. It breaks down in a relatively short time, depending on how much radiation it’s exposed to. If you use it in a ship, expect to replace the insulation panels every thousand hours or so. That’s an estimate, based on what I expect to find in space. We could replace the insulation panels when we change the door seals.

  “There’s another option in addition to the foam. The plasma won’t stop neutrons, but boron might. One of the boron isotopes absorbs neutrons. Depending on the numbers of linked atoms, you can get boron buckyballs, boron sheets, and that’s not even considering oobleck. A layer of boron sheet or oobleck beneath the outer hull would work best. I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “Oobleck? Pete, have you been drinking? Or are you pulling my leg?”

  “No, it’s real. Kids play with it. Depending on pressure, it flows like a liquid or freezes into a solid. I was thinking of a thin layer between the external hull and the layer of infused foam. I think it’s possible to build self-sealing hulls; if the hull is punctured, the pressure would drop and the oobleck would flow to fill in the hole. As soon as it plugged the leak and pressure was restored, it would solidify. I’m still working on the idea, though. Anyway, there’s a version of oobleck that uses boron. Chemically, it doesn’t matter which isotope is involved, and boron stops neutrons.”

  “Be nice if it works. But what do you think of Dolph’s explanation?”

  “It’s interesting. I don’t know if he’s right or not, but the important thing is that the plasma blocks radiation. The insulating panels would last longer, nearly indefinitely, in a low-radiation environment.”

  “Keep working on it, Pete. Your oobleck wouldn’t work for a big hole, the fluid wouldn’t have enough structural strength. Radiation on Luna is a slightly different problem, too; some of the time, the Earth is between Luna and the sun, so it acts as a shield. Luna itself blocks radiation about half the time. During the dark period, there should be less radiation. Still, the Apollo astronauts picked up some, half a RAD or so while they were on the moon. We’ll need a solution before we can go there to stay. Mars will have its own radiation suite, though probably not as bad. Mars has a thin atmosphere, that helps, and it’s a lot further away from the sun. That’s the main source of radiation in the solar system, so the farther away you are the less radiation there is. It’s an area function, radiation decreases by the square of the distance. Twice the distance from the sun, your radiation exposure drops to one fourth.”

  “Right,” Chuck said dryly.

  #

  Lina took the shuttle bus to the hotel and checked in. She looked around the lobby, realizing that it was much the same as any other hotel’s lobby but with a few subtle differences. The clerk behind the counter had a pronounced accent. Lina finally understood, deep inside; she was in Australia. New Mexico, Texas, even the USA was a long way behind her. A faint lingering tension, there since the rape, vanished; it was recognizable only after it went away.

  She would miss the old ranch house; she had wonderful memories of the first months after she and Chuck moved in. But Chuck’s visits home had become irregular and brief, depending on how often he flew, and now Lina had the unborn twins to think of. A criminal had believed that Lina offered leverage he could use against Frenchy, so wouldn’t another crook go after Frenchy’s grandchildren? Could Frenchy resist if they kidnapped the babies and demanded the impeller drive in exchange for their lives?

  Australia is safer, she thought, but no place on Earth is truly safe.

  Criminals moved freely about, from nation to nation. She no longer had reason to fear the man with the white streak in his hair, thanks to Chuck, but there were uncounted others. No, even in Australia, she would have to protect herself and her babies. Lina resolved to rent, not buy, but only until she could build a place for her family that was easily defended. The house would feature an armored safe room, such that no one could break in without killing the inhabitants. Killing them would achieve nothing; their only value was as hostages. The thought gave her a pang, that her babies would be at risk. But the statistics didn’t lie; even if Frenchy accepted the kidnappers’ demands, most victims were killed, not released.

  But where to build? Should it be here in Brisbane, or some other place? Was one place in Australia essentially the same as another? She picked up a map of Brisbane and its suburbs as she left the lobby.

  Building a place like she had in mind wouldn’t be cheap, but cost really wasn’t a consideration. NFI was earning money faster than she would have believed a year ago. The Japanese contract paid well, despite the payments being reduced to half the former amount, but cash was flowing in from other contracts. In addition to removing spent fuel rods, NFI would soon deliver the first components to orbit for Indian and Indonesian space stations, and France had contracted for a thousand launches with an option for more. The majority of the funds would be paid in installments after the cargoes were delivered to space, but the system was working. NFI also had contracts to service the new space stations, as well as transport Indian and Indonesian astronauts to and from the stations. The company still had problems, but money was no longer one of them.

  How to start? Probably by finding out what local laws had to say about foreign property ownership.

  Could she emigrate, become an Australian? Give up her American citizenship? What did that American passport really mean? What had the US government done for them, other than shut down their factory? What did she owe the country of her birth, now that it had effectively turned on her?

  Well. Time enough for that tomorrow. If Australia didn’t want her, Canada would. Or for that matter, Singapore. The daughter of the man who essentially owned NFI would not have to go begging.

  Chapter Six

  Dolph’s voice betrayed his excitement when he called Chuck.

  “Chuck, we’ve detected the glow on Earth. Wolfgang’s copilot spotted it because it was so dark out where he was. Apparently the plasma field has been there since the beginning, just so faint that no one noticed it. There’s also another possibility; the atmosphere blocks most of the alpha and beta particles, so there was almost nothing to interact with the plasma. No glow, in other words.”

  “How did you detect it, Dolph?”

  “We bolted an impeller to a beam that was inset into the floor of the lab. As soon as we spun up the impeller and turned out the lights, there it was. We didn’t get a glow, only a few sparks, so I’d say the field makes a pretty good radiation detector! We also measured the plasma’s effect on magnetic and electric fields, and both responded. Our results varied with the impeller output, more power generating a stronger response.”

  “But there was no radiation being generated by the impeller field?”

  “None. The only problem, and I emphasize it’s no more than a possibility, has to do with the radios and radar. Worst case, you’ll have to mount the antennas forward of the nose impellers, outside the field. But they’ve been working, and we know they work through the Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis on Earth, so I doubt it will be necessary.”

  “Tell your people good job, Dolph. The glow bothered me until you figured out what was happening, but now I’m more worried about radiation in space. What do we know?”

  “Quite a lot,
actually. There have been a number of rocket flights that measured the Van Allen Belts, for one thing. The glow we’re seeing is like what we see on Earth, the aurora effect. Both are caused by solar ions interacting with a magnetic field. According to what I know of the impeller drive, it’s creating an electromagnetic field that’s simultaneously rotating and revolving. You’re also generating high voltages, because the field generators are multiple secondary elements of a single Tesla coil. The plasma is likely being caused by the high potential. Conclusion, the field doesn’t hurt you, it protects you. Two things come to mind right off; don’t shut down the impellers unless you absolutely have to, and make better radiation protection part of all future ship designs. From now on, everyone who goes into space wears a dosimeter. Backup film badges wouldn’t hurt, either.”

  “Thanks, Dolph, I’ll get with you and Pete later. I was just thinking, rocket boosters are sprayed with foam insulation; suppose we infuse the foam with metal and metalloid atoms? The insulation would still be lightweight, but now it would provide at least some protection while the impeller field was down. That should be enough for normal conditions, but maybe not from solar storms. I suspect they’d still be dangerous. Even on Earth, strong electromagnetic storms can knock out power lines as well as shut down communications. The good news is they don’t happen by surprise; astronomers know when they’re coming. Even coronal mass ejections are predictable, within limits. Solution, make space weather part of our checklists, just like airline pilots do. They get a weather briefing before every flight. If ships are already in space, maybe the impeller field will protect them. That won’t help on the moon, though, meaning I’ll have to rethink my ideas for a lunar habitat.”

  “Put it underground, Chuck, that’s what NASA had in mind. The Apollo guys picked up some exposure on the surface, and it’s cumulative. Even a small amount can add up to a lethal dose over time.”

  “Where are we going to house the people while they’re building Moonbase, Dolph?”

  “I’ll come up with something. First idea, explosives. Blow a hole, dig out the rubble...easy to do in a sixth of a gee...then put an insulated cap over the top.”

  “Doable, I think. What kind of explosives?

  “Probably shaped charges made of molded plastic explosive. What do you know about explosives?”

  “Some. I used them in Iraq. Most of the time, we used blocks of TNT or C4. You just pinch off as much of the C4 as you need, mold it like putty, and stick a cap in. Hook up the clacker, bang. Nothing to it.”

  “A shaped charge directs some of the blast into a cone-shaped jet. It uses something called the Munroe Effect to contain the blast and focus it.”

  “Do I need to know about this? You build it, I’ll blow it.”

  “It’ll be done from orbit, Chuck. You can’t predict where the ejecta will go. Keep that sixth of a gee gravitational field in mind. Expelled rocks go a long way, at least six times as far as you think they will. That’s partly because of the low gravity, but also there’s no atmosphere to slow anything down. The safest thing to do is set the charge, back way off, then watch it blow. You know this is going to create a dust cloud, don’t you? Telescopes on Earth will see what you’re doing.”

  “I doubt it. Moonbase will be on the side away from Earth.”

  “If that’s what you want. Keep in mind that the far side collects more meteor hits.”

  “Most of those happened a long time ago, Dolph. If we put Moonbase on the Earthside, nosy neighbors will be watching. On the far side, we might get hit by a falling rock, but that’s pretty unlikely.”

  “Your choice. That dust cloud will hang around a long time before it settles, so if anyone sends up a rocket, they’ll see it.”

  “Unless they see the explosion when it happens, it’s just dust. It could have been caused by a meteor strike.”

  “What about the ship? Are you going to conceal it?”

  “No. I’ll need it to install a commo link with the satellite system and probably to haul supplies. Waste of time I think, trying to hide it. If anyone is out there, they’ll notice the movement. That need for a commo link means a repeater at the boundary between nearside and farside. I haven’t selected the site for Moonbase yet, but so long as it has direct line of sight to the repeater, any communication would be sent on to the satellites. Not a problem, in other words.”

  “Do it this way, then. Set up your communications system first, because you’ll need to be able to message Earth. Then use several shaped charges, big ones. Link them with detonating cord, fire the det cord from the middle so the shaped charges blow simultaneously. Depending on how that goes, figure on using secondary charges, maybe five to ten kilos of TNT each. Put the charges beneath the broken rock, and that will clean out the craters. Plastic explosives have high brisance, shattering effect, while TNT is a slow explosive that’s better for kicking rocks out of holes. Wait a day or two after the first explosion to give the rocks time to fall back to the surface, any that are going to. If you wait long enough, it won’t be a problem. Keep your people under shelter until they’ve got a fairly-clean hole to work in, and that should solve your radiation problem.”

  “You mentioned a large shaped charge, Dolph. How large?”

  “That will be up to whoever you hire to blow the holes. Maybe a hundred kilos, I haven’t worked it out yet.”

  “That’s...two hundred and twenty five pounds!”

  “About that, yes. You don’t want to be living in a rabbit hole, do you?”

  #

  Lina spent the first two weeks getting acclimated to Brisbane. She found she liked the Australians, liked their relaxed attitude and upbeat philosophy. She considered buying or renting a car, but decided to wait; Australians drive on the left side, so she thought it might take more time to get comfortable with the traffic. The city was also strange. She knew nothing of roads and traffic patterns, other than that the city was laid out around Bramble and Moreton bays.

  Having decided, Lina hired a car and driver. Traffic rules were also different; eventually, she would become familiar with the system, but for now she preferred a driver who could also serve as guide.

  #

  The man was tall, thin, and balding. He was also old enough to have grown a respectable set of wrinkles, most of them around his eyes and the sides of his mouth. Lina decided he smiled a lot, and more than likely spent a lot of time outdoors. He wore a battered brown hat, tipped back, and loose, comfortable clothing.

  “G’day, luv. Front seat or back?”

  “Front, for now. Do all Australians wear those hats, Mac?”

  “You wear what you please, luv. I drive a lot of tourists, ya see, and they expect me to look like Croc Dundee, ay. The Akubra Snowy River helps me image.”

  Lina laughed delightedly. “So you dress up for the tourists, do you?”

  “It doesn’t hurt, luv. The hat’s comfortable, now that I’ve bashed it around a bit, and the sun can be a bother this time of year. Rain, too. If yer a long-time banana bender, you expect rain this time of year, ay.”

  “Banana-bender, Mac?”

  “Queenslander, luv. Lived here all my life. I wouldn’t be happy anywhere else.”

  “You don’t like other cities?”

  “Brisbane is just right, I’m thinking. Not too hot, not too cold. Down south, they get more rain and ‘tis a tad cooler, up north it gets bloody hot and muggy. Western Australia does too, and as for the outback, you can dry up and blow away out there. A man works up a good thirst and some think that a blessin’, thems that like a cold tinny. But I make m’ livin’ drivin’, and I can’t afford problems with the booze bus, ay.”

  “You almost speak English,” exclaimed Lina.

  “Here, now, luv, that’s no way to talk! I might say the same thing about you, y’know!”

  Mac entered the stream of traffic, expertly negotiating lane changes. “We’ll start with the city proper, north of the river. After lunch, you might like to see the South Bank. The Queenslan
d Museum and the Sciencentre are worth a long look, and there’s the Gallery of Modern Art if yer taste runs to that. We could schedule a trip to Mount Coot-tha, the Botanic Gardens are first-rate, ay.”

  “I’d rather see just one of the museums today, if you don’t mind. If you’re free tomorrow, I’d like to look at some of the nicer neighborhoods. I’m considering relocating.”

  “Are you, now? Well, Brisbane is top-notch, you can’t do better. Got everything a body could want, and it’s not like what yanks are used to at all. You need to watch for the snakes and such, spiders too, but yer neighbors hereabouts are likely to be friendly, ay. I hear they’re as likely to shoot you in America as invite you over for a barbie.”

  “It’s not like that, Mac. Oh, it happens, but...” Lina’s face grew suddenly pale. She remembered that Chuck had been involved in a shootout.

  “Is anything the matter, lass? I noticed you’re preggers, do you need me to run by the doctor?”

  “No, I’m all right. It was nothing. Perhaps it was something I ate.”

  “Aye, that can do it. Aussie brekkies can be a bit much until you get used to ‘em. I’ll slow down and pull over, you’ll likely be right in a moment or so, ay.”

  #

  Tim Bentsen swore. Another film wasted; what could be the problem? The big telescope was focused off to the side, so it couldn’t be reflected light from the moon. Could they have gotten a bad batch of film, or had light somehow leaked through the paper wrapping? Supposedly the chemically-treated paper was light-proof, but something was wrong. The image should have held stars; instead, a bluish haze covered most of the photo.

  Tossing the ruined image atop the others he’d taken, he headed for the storeroom. There was usually a case of film somewhere about. If not, maybe one of the electronic cameras was available. They were usually booked up, but maybe he could wheedle a few minutes exposure time.

  An hour later, Tim stared at the image. The blue haze was still there, but so was something else. A stubby winged shape, some sort of spacecraft, floated within the light. Could it be one of those NFI spaceships? But that was unlikely; any number of newspapers had run images, and none of them looked like this. Their ships carried dangerous cargoes to space and sent them on toward the sun; what would one of their ships be doing all the way over there? He scratched his chin, then went looking for the senior astronomer assigned to this shift. Maybe he would know something.