Leaving Earth Vol. 1 (Leaving Earth Omnibus)

by Kaal Alexander Rosser

  'Not yet, but I think he is working up to it. I am good at this, you know.'

  'Never doubted it. Look, love, I have no objections to your taking a permanent role in Space Division. I know I was an arse before about it, but there really is no issue.'

  'You're sure?'

  'Yes. If you're enjoying the new role, it will actually help that you know the capabilities of the various power options available. Likewise, you can help inform Core Power what the real requirements are, via SyncDep.'

  'You're really sure you're not going to get snippy?'

  'Really, really.' Grum moved over to stand behind her and stuck his arms round her middle to gently hug her. 'It works best this way. I understand that.'

  Vann leaned back slightly and relaxed into him. 'Thank you.'

  'No need for thanks. We should eat, and you can tell me details about what you're doing. I only get headlines from Hank.'

  Chapter 9

  GRUM was dreading this day. They had kept "A" running to have enough generators to fill up one pod of twenty six. It would be a hybrid, using the new pod design but older generators. Grum did not want it hanging around too long in the company's history. He would have to find a use for it, somewhere.

  Now, though, he had to give the order to shut down the current production and not start again for six months. At no point in the coming few months was this going to be pleasant.

  It also seemed that the Nevada state authorities had woken up to the expanding site and were demanding re-certification for the storage facilities. That, at least, should not be a problem. When Grum has specified the original storage, he had assumed — as had the rest of USSMC — that they would just be storing the antimatter on site for years. The storage facilities were, therefore, well over-specified for the purpose. Even after the expansion of the site. It was just one more piece of red tape to cut through.

  Grum called Stew, but it rang through to his voicemail, so he left a message. 'Stew, Grum. Ben has a possibly valid concern about the consultancy business. Can you come over to discuss? Ta.'

  Ben's problem was that he was not exactly sure that his people would want to go back to working on production at Nevada after having other jobs to do — in some cases for nearly a year, by the end. Grum could see that. It was one thing to be working on remote problems which were interesting for a little while, but quite another to be doing the day job, no matter how much you would normally enjoy it.

  Stew was in Grum's office less than ten minutes later, and Grum outlined the problem for him.

  Stew grinned. 'Turn about is fair play.'

  'Come again? Ben hasn't done anything to deserve this, surely?'

  'Oh, no, I didn't mean as regards Ben, per se. I was thinking of the solution.'

  'Ah. Got you. Ben hires consultants from other parts of the business to create the solutions?'

  'Yep. Especially any of the really interesting stuff at Nevada. Then hands the solutions to his own people to implement. They'll soon get tired of that. To be honest, most of them are better engineers than in the rest of the company, anyway, so they'll get hacked off with trying to implement inferior solutions and end up doing it themselves.'

  'That could back-fire on Ben.'

  'Only if you don't tell him how to handle it. Play the helpless card. Got to get this done, you're busy with consultancy work… Had to farm it out, wish I didn't have to… All that sort of thing.'

  'Still. Could be tricky.'

  'Just make sure that everyone there knows about the product range they'll be producing. That'll keep them happy. There will be enough different types of product coming out of Nevada to satisfy any mix of job spec. To be perfectly frank, Nevada is going to need consultancy time, anyway. No-one there is a super-capacitor expert, for example. Product design is going to be a pretty major adjunct. Forget the staff which still have to be hired for when Nevada is up to speed again. Think of all the staff which will be needed to cope with the end products!'

  Grum had thought. And then Grum had ignored, because he really did not want to have to think about it yet.

  'For now, just getting everybody on board with the various generator sizes would be good.'

  'On that note, I have some good news.'

  'I could use some of that.'

  'Happily, then, in my discussions with the new senior engineer of the space habitat programme,' Stew paused and grinned, 'this morning, I discovered that the total power requirements, including life-support for the thirty intended habitat personnel, would require just under a one hundred and thirty kilowatt power supply, continuous over ten years.'

  'Just over half the nominal rating for a "double-strength" pod — that's a hell of a single point of failure for an orbital habitat. Pod packs up and you lose all your breathing privileges.'

  'Exactly. They need smaller generators.'

  'Well, we knew that.'

  'Yes, but now we have a customer asking for it, directly.'

  'Excellent. Has that requirement found its way onto Ben's desk, yet?'

  'Not yet. It was one of the things that I wanted to collate and run past you before giving Ben the news.'

  'Fair enough. I would like to see all the numbers, but don't wait to pass them on to Ben. Even in dribs-and-drabs. The sooner he gets them, the better.

  'The other thing I realised this morning, is that, for some reason Vann is being siloed away from anything to do with the generator technology.'

  'Hank probably thinks she doesn't want anything to do with that any more.'

  'Well, it was the one sour note from an otherwise completely positive discussion. Could you see what's going on?'

  'Yep. OK. Get those figures to Ben and remind him that Vann works for Hank, now, so the requirements are going to be solid. I will go and see what Hank's up to.'

  Grum did not bother to wait around. He left Stew, and went straight down to see Hank.

  He knocked at Hank's door and received the beckoning motion to enter.

  'Hey, Hank. How's it going?'

  'Really well!'

  'That's good.' Grum paused for a beat while he took a breath. 'I'll come straight to the point. Is there a reason you don't want Vann near the generator technology?'

  'I just figured she would have had enough of that, especially as she wanted to change Divisions to get away from it.'

  'That wasn't quite the situation, Hank. She has no problem with the technology. Being married to the boss was the problem — for both of us. She knows the ins and outs of those generators and the pods better than anyone, Hank. It only makes sense to let her get involved.'

  'Ah. I see. Well, that makes more sense, now. I'll fix that directly. Now, have you had a chance to look at the requirements she came up with?'

  'Stew is collating them, but I have him feeding them back directly to Nevada, so they have an express heads-up.'

  'That will do nicely.'

  'I just popped in for that, Hank. I've got to get on, just wanted to keep things moving smoothly.'

  'Expertly done, Grum. Be seeing you.'

  'Cheers.'

  Grum called Ben next. It was turning out to be a busy day.

  'Grum, hi. How's it going? I was going to call you anyway about these figures which Stew sent through. I know we're doing the rebuild so we can produce different masses, but you can't have meant to start straight away!'

  'I can, and do, Ben. Remember I said that Nevada was finished without the rebuilds? This is why. The masses we were set up to produce were almost precisely useless in any practical implementation. Smaller generators — and I mean small as in down to the picogram small — and bigger ones, as big as we can per run, will be needed. If you haven't got those racks of containers we started talking about last year ready in six months… We're going to have a problem.'

  'Well, the sizes near the original sizes aren't a problem, but damn, Grum, it's a whole different ball game down at the really small levels.'

  'I know. You can probably get away with just producing as many
half and quarter sizes as possible for the first year or so. Make those the design priorities. They should also be the easiest. While you're producing those, though, you'll need to get cracking on the scalable versions.'

  'OK. But… What will these all be for?'

  'The first sets will be for the orbitals and possible some other space projects. For the other types… Well, Ben. Anything we can think of which has a continuous power requirement in the range we are talking about… I want to investigate it. I'm thinking of having a competition going for the next year or so. Maybe I'll make it a yearly contest, for coming up with the most innovative use of one of our technologies. And Ben… You have the advantage. Anything involving antimatter sounds innovative by default. Are we good?'

  'Yes, boss. I'll get right on that!'

  Chapter 10

  BEING invited to board meetings was still not a regular thing for Grum. Especially when the agenda had read like a like of questions he would rather not entertain until the Nevada facility was actually back up and running at full strength.

  When it actually came to it, though, the phrasing of the questions actually did not give him as hard a time of it as he though he was going to have.

  It helped a great deal that Steve Branch had sent through the company's Mission Statement and Core Values Proposition, as a not so subtle reminder. It also helped that the Chairman was Kelvin Goldstein — against normal practice — and that the Research Director was Hank Bowers.

  Still. He was asked some awkward questions.

  Q: Was he intentionally taking roles from other Divisions, such as Human Resources?

  A: No, absolutely not. If the board is referring to the recent innovation of creating a professional services consultancy group, then its remit was strictly limited to science and engineering. Should any other groups wish to set up a similar function, however, SyncDep was there as an exemplar and source of expertise.

  Q: Had he really just shut down his entire Division for six months?

  A: No. He had signed the order to shut down the Nevada department for the purposes of a major refit and overhaul, but every other department in his Division was still operational. Indeed, due to the aforementioned consultancy group, even the personnel within the Nevada department were being productive.

  Q: Was he aware that he had, effectively, increased the wage bill, for the entire company, by engaging in the consultancy model without the approval of the board?

  A: Firstly, he had not been aware that board approval was required to most effectively utilise the personnel in his Division. Secondly, he would dispute that the wage bill had — or would — increase due to the usage of the internal consultancy model. Any department or Division which was short of the particular skills his Division could supply was free to apply to SyncDep for allocation of resources when such became available. This kept both departments — source and recipient — most fully employed, and was better value than: a) either one or both being sub-optimally utilised, and, b) having to hire external contractors or consultants to fill the skills gap, even if such skills were available on the open market.

  The HR Director had dismissed that. 'You have still caused the internal wage bill to rise! Regardless of the utilisation of one or two engineers due to an action you yourself initiated in shutting down one of your departments.'

  'However, the productiveness of the company as a whole has risen and cost of labour per unit produced has dropped due to the more effective utilisation.'

  'That is not my concern!' the HR Director all but growled. 'My concern is the wage bill, which my Division has to pay!'

  'But we’re not representing particular Divisions, here, are we, Gil?' said Hank in a mild drawl. 'We are representing specialities on behalf of the shareholders for the overall good of the company.'

  'Indeed!' That was the first time Kelvin had spoken up. 'Well said, Hank! From the perspective of this board meeting, I consider that Graham Hewson has explained his action and rationale to my satisfaction, and demonstrated — once again — that he has been acting in the best interests of the company. Despite the limited viewpoint of some members of this board. I shall close this meeting if there is no other business? No. This meeting is closed. Thank you all.'

  Ben was having problems in hiring people to work at the Nevada Facility. It was difficult, he said, to make the place look exciting and busy when it was not either of those things.

  The housing situation had not been completely resolved, either. The apartment complex for the current staff had been finished before the construction of "B" had called for the old apartments to be knocked down. However, that did not mean that the rest of the village had been entirely finished, so the facilities — especially for those with children — were patchy. It was starting to cause Ben some headaches.

  He warned Grum that he might start losing staff if things were not rectified pretty quickly.

  The trouble Grum had was that there was very little he could do to make the situation better. He could promise a lot of stuff, but he could not make the construction happen any faster without compromising safety.

  He appealed to Ben to try and convince people to stick it out on the basis that things would be better once the builds were complete. Ben told him that was his standard position in any case, and it was holding less and less water as time went on.

  Grum really did not know what to do about that. It seemed fairly reasonable to him that waiting until a rebuild — that you knew was going to happen — was finished, before complaining, was only sensible. He had to be missing something from the conversation, and whatever it was was the key to fixing this issue.

  He asked Ben to work on trying to find out what was underlying this discontent and get back to him.

  'Oh this can't be good,' said Grum, as Steve Branch walked into his office.

  'It's funny how often I hear that as my greeting,' said Steve with a rueful smile. 'But I figured that it was more sensible to come and see you directly, because you keep beating me to the punch.'

  That caused Grum to pause. What on earth was that supposed to mean? 'Coffee's in the pot. Now suppose you give me some context for that statement, so I can try and catch up.'

  'Thanks.' Steve went to get himself a mug of coffee, but continued to talk. 'You see, I was about to take another trip down to Nevada to have a talk with the new head of that facility, but then I found out that you had just gone down there, and the need for me to go had evaporated. Good job, by the way.'

  'Thank you…'

  'And then, I was going to do yet another tour in the Space Division to support a VP who was needed some, but then suddenly he's all chipper again and moving forward, although with reduced resources, but a new high-profile engineer in the mix.'

  'Well, yes, you see…'

  'And then,' Steve carried on, talking over Grum, 'I hear that Nevada had a problem with under utilisation… Had a problem, as it turned out, was accurate. And when — the same day — I hear Stewart Leslie making noises about an internal consultancy group he was starting up… "Oh ho!" I thought, "I can see where this is going". The only thing left on my to-do list was to help Hank Bowers fix his under resourcing problem in engineering. I waited. And whaddyaknow?'

  'Yes, but…'

  'Do you hate me that much, Grum? Are you trying to put me out of a job?'

  Grum could not help it. Steve's tone was so plaintive that he had to laugh. 'Oh, sit down. I take it you didn't just come here to feed me a string of compliments. What's up?'

  'Oh, that's part of it. Because you've created for yourself a world of hurts. The board meeting is just the start of it, I fear.'

  'And seeing as you have nothing to do…'

  'Oh no, I wouldn't interfere without authorisation. I was given a new to-do list. You can hardly call it a list, though. It only has one item: "Help Graham Hewson", so I investigated, and now I'm here.'

  'With a dire warning.'

  'With, as you say, a dire warning.' Steve pulled a copy of the company magazine f
rom his back pocket and put it on Grum's desk. 'Ever read this?'

  'Does anybody?'

  'About thirty percent of the company, on-and-off. And just of late there have been letters and op-ed pieces which I found interesting in light of my task. Also, it should be noted, that the further you get away from the New York HQ, the more employees read it. In Nevada, for example, over half the workforce read the magazine.'

  Grum picked it up, but put it back down again. 'Tell me.'

  'OK. Someone, and we can guess at one or two of the players, is co-ordinating a character assassination against you. There are pieces which call for Divisional or departmental autonomy, others which warn against the evils of empire building, and yet others which question intra-company chargeable services or products. That last one actually uses your old boss giving the Tech Centre its AM power plant as an example of how things should be done. That's the nearest I can find as a direct attack on you, though. Everything else is simply designed to undermine your position on nearly everything.'

  'People are buying into it?'

  'Yes. The pieces are well written and convincing. They even sound sensible, from a skewed perspective and if you have little grounding in critical thinking. The fallacies are subtle.'

  'I confess, I'm shocked. I do not know how to counter that sort of thing.'

  'I have a feeling you would figure it out, in time, but time is a factor. The campaign seems designed to culminate around when the Nevada facility comes back up to full strength.'

  'OK. So what's behind this?'

  'Some of it I know, some I don't. Yet. You know that this is still a young company, as an entity, but it was made by bolting together a lot of other companies. Some of those companies had long histories, and some of their senior management either got positions in the C-suite or directorships — or both. Your old VP was one of those who got both, and he had friends amongst the C-suite and the board. I think that is quite a large part of it. Fear is another factor. A flattering one, to be sure, because some of those I think may be involved see you as a threat to their positions. You know you've been tipped as COO? In addition to running Core Power — good name, by the way — you would have a huge sway over the day-to-day management of USSMC as a whole.'