"Nope," one of the elders said with a shake of his head.
"And then there is the risk of another landslide," Nate said, looking up to the cliffs on either side.
"Ayeup," the elder said.
"Yeah, nasty," Nate said with a shake of his head. "I know my limits; sorry boys, this is one of them."
The elders nodded as they made their way back to the village.
Later that morning they said their goodbyes. Mary hugged Cory as Cory's shy children clung to their mother. The expedition had to go back the way they came, a bit tricky going back up the slope but they managed it. Cory watched them go.
~~~^~~~
After they left, Cory got into the Miss Bliss . She carefully took out the battery, radio, and antenna and moved them to a nearby hill where the village kept a lighthouse. The lighthouse was more of a signal tower than a proper lighthouse, just a beacon in the night in case a ship was still out to sea when night fell or a storm brewed up.
It wasn't much use for shelter, the natives had built it out of wood and some brick, and it wasn't suited for someone to stay in it. She made a note of that.
It took several trips to get all the parts up to where she wanted them to be. Once there she set them up in a box, and when she was ready, consulted a piece of scrap paper that Nate had used to write frequencies and channels down on. It took several tries before she found one that worked.
She sat there, tears streaming down her face as she hesitantly spoke with the operator on the other end, answering the questions and asking her own. When the wind picked up and her battery started to die, she reluctantly said she had to sign off.
The operator acknowledged that and asked if she could look into finding a way to give them more information about the area in the future. "Even general weather would be nice."
"I think I can do something about that. My old ship has some weather gear. Definitely temperature and such," she said thoughtfully. "We've got a fish finder and radar. Would that help?"
"I don't know what those are to be honest."
"Ah. Well, the problem is, we don't have power. My battery is about done in here."
"We can make power with the wind if you've got wind there," the operator said just as a gust nearly blew Cory off the hill.
"I think that's not a problem," the woman said with a laugh.
"Well, consider investing in one in the future."
"Will do," she said and then signed off. She felt better, better than she had in years.
She looked down to the fishing village below. People were bustling about as the day wore on. She turned her eyes to look out to sea and saw her husband's fishing trawler on the horizon. Yes, things were definitely looking up indeed.
Chapter 20
Imperium
Deidra posed for pictures with the baby in a photo shoot. She had done a few with Ciara for the fashion shows, and she had seen shoots for some of the tech, but this was a bit personal and political all rolled into one.
She cooed over the photos, selecting one to be blown up and printed and then posted for the public to see. Charlie had managed to make several ink recopies including those for the printers, and therefore, they had a steady supply so there was no problem there. She wanted to commission a proper painting but she wanted it with Eugene as a family. Unfortunately, he was busy. She plotted to arrange it during the winter when he would be restricted to the capital.
~~~^~~~
Eugene wasn't thrilled about making the rounds since he had to do it in armor on a branack in the heat, but at least the trips were day trips.
He had to privately admit he felt a little like Ironman in his custom armor. Max had engineered it over the winter to look a bit like Ironman. Some of the parts had been 3D printed. It looked very sci-fi and he loved that aspect of it. And the fact that it had been built with so much articulation in it … and fans to help him cool off helped a lot.
The harvests were ongoing, and a part of his job was to keep an eye on that, looking for graft, while some of the checks were just reminders that they still answered to the queen. The gloved fist.
There were rumors of bandits but always in domains further afield than he was willing to venture at the moment. Deidra had him on a short leash, wanting him back by nightfall if possible. Usually he straggled in tired from the long day of riding.
He intended to do a few more checks, but then when the weather turned, he was looking forward to a day off.
Part of his job was to supplement Max's engineering checks and to check on the newly-installed radio relay stations. Each was automated and set up on a tall building or hill. Some were radio stations powered by native-built wind turbines. They still had issues with batteries, something he needed to call Max and Charlie to task about soon.
Some of the stations were audio only, but he and Max had started to work in some Wi-Fi using some of their limited supply of parts they had left. It had very limited bandwidth though and was limited to just the main road east to west at the moment.
The idea was to eventually be able to send and receive data transmissions rather than build the landline infrastructure needed. The landline was more reliable but costly in terms of time and materials. It was also a pain in the ass to set up; they were running into that with just running power poles. And after hearing about some of the wind turbines being knocked over by giant beasts with itchy butts, he wasn't keen about the investment.
And then there was the problem of copper mining and supplies. If they could switch the system up, maybe go with fiber optics … he frowned thoughtfully and made a note to look into that.
Either way they were going to run into a wall when it came time to ICs though. They might eventually be reduced to Morse code over land lines if they couldn't figure something out. Eventually, their current supply of electronics was going to begin to fail …
He shuddered slightly and then tried to think of something else, hell, anything else.
~~~^~~~
Max checked on the HAM radio production line. The line was partially cottage industry, partially an assembly line. Usually they built the subassemblies, boxed them, and then when they had the time, they retooled the work benches to do a run of HAM radios.
Each person did a job. It could be adding every capacitor or it could be all of the resistors or soldering connections. They did their job and then passed the board on to the next person in the line to do theirs. They were looking to double their production from the last time if all of the parts worked as planned.
And this time they weren't stopping if a part was bad. If it was bad, the board and parts were put in a special bin to check later. That way they didn't hold up the works. If all went as planned, they'd run through the HAM radios in a single day.
What he wanted was a dedicated radio production line run by someone else. That wasn't going to happen though; the supply couldn't support it, at least not yet.
It was the best they could do with their limited electronics for the moment. As much as he'd like to see them jump right into Wi-Fi, they were still years away. They had a lot to go before they could build the ICs. They still needed to improve their tech in other fields too. The capacitors were very noisy.
It was nice to see them getting closer to that though. With modern electronics, they could do a lot of automation and jump past the whole hand wiring and soldering business.
He checked the three HAM radios they had produced, gave a thumbs-up to Jer, the tester, and then went to check the downstream production line.
Instead of using the 3D printers to make the cases, he'd accepted using wooden ones. They looked a bit retro, but that was fine. It drew in some of the other artisans and helped spread the love and money around a bit.
It also let him focus the 3D printer work on making the circuit boards. One of the 3D printers could be altered into a small CNC machine to machine out copper boards into circuit boards. They had gotten good at it. From there the board could accept pieces plugged in and hand soldered down the l
ine until the finishing line.
He did need to add more intermittent testing to the steps though. He scowled at the printers.
"What? Something wrong?" Evan asked.
He shook his head. "The problem is; it can do a lot but not everything. And only a few things at once. Sometimes only one thing at a time. We're limited by that, the time it takes to make the part, the materials on hand, and parts. Once this thing runs out of parts, we can't reproduce; we're up a creek."
"What does that mean?" the kid asked. He'd thought he'd done something wrong. Now he wasn't sure what to think.
"It means when this breaks it will be useless. Not completely I suppose, we could still scavenge it for parts to keep the others running."
"Oh."
"So, we need to work on making parts."
"Ah, yes. We're doing that though," Evan said, indicating parts bins.
"But not just for this machine," Max said, pointing to one of the two industrial machines they had. Also, we need to make another and another after that."
Evan nodded. He'd heard that argument before. "What of these?" he pointed to a chip on an exposed circuit board. He was tasked with gently cleaning the board with a blower twice daily to keep bits from possibly shorting things out.
"Yeah, those are a problem. One I don't know how to solve anytime soon," Max grumbled.
"Oh."
"Oof," Max said, still in a bit of a funk.
"One step, hell, one part at a time if we have to, sir," Evan said. He knew better than to call Max Master, or Master Smith. Max disdained titles.
Max snorted. "Understood."
"Your wife said to remind you that you have a breakfast at the palace tomorrow," Evan said.
Max snorted. "Right. Maybe I can get the king to figure an idea out," he said. Evan cocked his head. "You didn't know?"
Evan indicated his rank badge. They had introduced badges as a security measure. His had his picture, name, and rank as a junior technician. He had only started a month prior and was still feeling his way around.
"Oh, well, before we came here, the king was a smith and merchant of sorts of things like these," he said, indicating the printers and electronics. “Quite good, that's why I went to work for him and how we eventually came here."
Evan nodded. He hadn't heard the story in that way but it made a sort of sense. "Do you think he can think of something we haven't?"
"Who knows? Sometimes it works out that way. We'll see," Max said as he headed for the door. "Keep up the good work, kid."
"I'll try," Evan replied as his boss departed.
~~~^~~~
With Eugene back they managed to have a working breakfast with the other Terrans for once. And Hermione was there, set up in a baby chair despite still being only a few months old. She burbled though, and everyone cooed over how darling she was. Sue wasn't thrilled about letting the baby eat some solid food yet, but she was amused when the baby gummed on a piece of bacon.
"He's late," Sue said with a sniff.
"Not normal," Max said. "He's going to miss out on the bacon if he doesn't get his act in gear," he warned, snagging a piece. His wife smacked him in exasperation, but he just smiled slightly at her.
She rolled her eyes and looked away.
"He's busy. He probably got waylaid along the way. Sometimes I think he's going to go hoarse from all the talking," Deidra said.
When Eugene bustled in, she imperiously lifted her chin and turned her cheek for a kiss. He leaned around her for a proper one.
"Off with his head," she said. "You are late," she scolded, eyeing him sternly.
"Obviously, the kiss isn't enough to get me off the hook. Hmm …." He smiled wickedly. "Well, it depends on which head you wanna off."
That earned a startled guffaw from their guests. Deidra blushed.
"I seem to recall you did one quite well the other night," he teased relentlessly.
That earned a roar of laughter from some of the men and a wine-colored blush from the queen. She glowered at Eugene as Charlie covered her face and giggled.
"Yee gods," Sue murmured, shaking her head in bemusement as Charlie rocked in hilarity.
"Well, you did walk into that one," he said innocently to Deidra as he smirked at her.
She gave him a challenging look. "Well, I'm sure the headsman has a tiny guillotine somewhere," she said loftily.
That earned another guffaw and an oooh from some of the guys at the retort.
"Somewhere," she said as the men went quiet and looked at Eugene.
"If not I'm sure Max could make one," she said, shooting a look at Max.
There was a snicker from the women.
"Don't even joke about that," Eugene said, eyes narrowing.
Deidra snorted, feeling better at getting her own back at him for once.
Max snapped his fingers, breaking the stare down contest. " Men in Tights ," he said suddenly. Deidra and Cecily turned to him in confusion as Sue began to chuckle. Charlie snickered, pointing an accusing finger at Eugene.
Eugene chuckled, shaking his head.
"I remember that!" Charlie said, pointing and laughing as she covered her mouth.
Deidra caught the eyes of some of the other native people in the room and just shook her head. It was obvious the Terrans were off on a tangent again. "For those of us who have not seen what you are talking about …?" she asked dryly.
"A movie. A comedy farce, Mel Brooks. A comedy genius," Charlie explained.
Deidra frowned. She knew what comedy was. This Brooks fellow must be some sort of jester but a rather famous one.,
"Yah, heard of me?" Max said in a mock voice that startled his wife.
"Great, now you set them both off," she sighed with a resigned shake of her head.
Deidra smiled slightly. "It doesn't take much to get them going. Fortunately, we now know what to stop them with," she said.
Charlie snorted. "Next they'll be comparing Swartz and whose is bigger," she said innocently.
That earned a startled look from the men and then another roar of laughter.
"I don't get it," the queen said in exasperation as she shook her head.
"Dude! Movie marathon!" Max suggested, looking at Eugene.
"Do we even have them?" Charlie asked. She turned to Eugene who nodded. "Of course we do, why did I even bother to ask?"
"I'm a fan too," Sue murmured. "I could use a good laugh."
"To be fair we'll have to spread it out. Show the natives the basic so they can get the context of the farce," Max said thoughtfully.
"If you've gotta explain a joke, it's over," Eugene said with a nod.
"Right."
"I can't believe we spent the entire long winter and no one watched them!" Charlie said. "I've missed stuff like that."
"To be fair we didn't know they were in the database. Probably buried in it under Comedy or something," Sue replied.
"Well, now we've got a longer list for movie night. We may need to add a couple more nights a week," Max said firmly.
Eugene took his seat and smiled at his wife. "I don't mind it so much. Dinner and a movie with a lovely lady. And it's fun hearing her laugh."
"We don't have those movies translated. That's rough," Sue said.
"I think I can understand most of your language now," Deidra said with a shrug.
"Yeah, but others won't. Well, we'll figure it out later," Max grumbled.
"They won't get Spaceballs at all," Eugene said as a servant delivered his platter.
"Probably not. Save that one for last. Maybe Blazing Saddles too. History of the World part one might have them lost … hmm," Max said thoughtfully.
"Less ruminating on things that don't matter and more eating. And this is supposed to be a working breakfast," his wife reminded him.
"Oh, yeah. Okay, save it for later," the mechanic replied with a dutiful nod. "Now, about the priorities given how late in the season we are and how long the winters are around here …"
~~~^~~~
Hostage Rescue (Princess Rescue Inc Book 2) Page 27
