Leaving Earth Vol. 1 (Leaving Earth Omnibus)

by Kaal Alexander Rosser

  'Neither Stew nor I were correct. Neither of our hypotheses held water on its own when we analysed the data.'

  'Go on.' Grum warily continued to sip his coffee, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  'Well, once our hypotheses played out, we were still left with data which also did not fit the "nobody did anything" null hypothesis. Or, I should say, more accurately, that the null did not fit, but that both Steve's and my hypotheses had strong supporting evidence in part.'

  'So, you went looking for hypotheses to support the data?' Grum frowned.

  'No, Grum, we didn't go fishing. It only took us about a day…' Stew glanced aside and Grum could see that although Steve was drinking his coffee, he had two fingers held up. '…Two days to test our own hypotheses. We could only get partial support, as I said, for each.'

  'Should have accepted the null…' Grum chided.

  'Don't start, I'm not some first year undergrad. Gimme a break. Anyway. We analysed from the perspective of the assumed null hypothesis — having realised that you supplied it — and found that it was not supported by the evidence, entirely, either. So in reality the assumed null was simply another alternate.'

  'That hurts,' said Grum, but he limited response to just that, and sipped his coffee again. They had obviously found something or they would not have gone through all this.

  'We left the data and went looking in the wider context. Journal publications, USSMC's own public communications, that sort of thing. There isn't much in the way of analysis on how much a publication in a particular impact factor journal raises the general awareness, but there is some. So, we worked out what the background interest level should be with a fairly wide margin of error, and our dataset was outside that range.'

  'Way outside.' Steve emphasised.

  'Yeah. What I would like to have done, would have been to give the problem of hypothesis generation over to someone else, but we couldn't. So…' Here Stew looked embarrassed. 'We each deliberately went away with our own copy of the data and all three hypotheses, and found all the misses rather than the hits. That, at least, would give us something marginally less biased to work with.'

  'Still sounds like fishing to me.'

  'Look, Grum, if we could have had other people fresh to the analysis, then we could have suggested hypotheses for them to test, or if we had the ability to gather fresh datasets, we could have bolstered the analysis that way! I need more coffee.'

  They all paused to refresh their mugs, then Steve picked up the tale. 'I wasn't at all sure why it was a bad idea to look for ways to explain the data until Stew explained about things like selection bias. Had it been less formal, we could probably have found this information quicker, but I understand it wouldn't be even as good as it is now. And I understand that it isn't good. However, the best we've got is that the pair of us compared our hypotheses on how to hit the misses from each others' original hypothesis. The hypotheses were pretty close, and by this time I was getting mighty tired of not being able to use a common sense approach, so I forced the issue. I said we should develop an hypothesis based on our two new hypotheses and apply that to the original dataset to see what we got.'

  'And?'

  Stew took it up again. 'And, taking the background level of interest as a baseline, the current levels and homogeneity of interest can be best explained by the confluence of several factors. One: we do have one or more leaks…'

  'Two,' Steve's turn again, 'we can't identify individual agencies, but we have piqued the interest of several of the armed services, despite having turned them away before…'

  'Three, one or more governmental civilian agencies are interested for reasons of their own, I can't imagine what.' Stew fluttered his hand ceiling-wards to indicate his opinion of the woolly outcome.'

  'And lastly, all of the other commercial space companies are keeping a close eye on us.'

  Grum looked between the two of them as they were numbering their findings, but said nothing.

  'The only thing we can deal with is the internal leak,' said Stew. 'So we turned detective and went snooping. You know that our old veep, the old chief engineer in Space Division, and the recently departed, unlamented HR director were all old mates, right?'

  Here it comes, thought Grum. 'Yes, I was aware.'

  'They were all part of the same company before USSMC. Do you know who else was part of that little group?'

  Grum put his head in his hands. He did know. He had hoped it would not come back to that, but he knew from the first time he and Hank had a drink together: "I've worked with him since the old days, before USSMC". 'It's Hank,' he said, dismally.

  'You bloody knew all along!' Stew nearly spilled his coffee as he jumped to his feet.

  'I guessed. I didn't know, and I hoped like hell I was wrong.'

  'So what have we been through all that for?' asked Steve.

  Grum shrugged. 'To know. Now, you two, I have to go and have a very difficult talk with one of our most fervent supporters. That was why I hoped there was another explanation. It's good that there were other factors involved. You said that the other commercial space companies were interested. Not NASA?'

  'Grum, if NASA get on board we'll need another seven accelerators.'

  'Then perhaps we should prompt them.'

  'WHAT?!' Both Stew and Steve yelled.

  'But perhaps not another seven. Seven total should cope.'

  'You're kidding. You're not kidding!' said Stew as Grum shook his head.

  'Right now, and I mean this very day, we are in the strongest position we have ever been, and possibly ever will be. I intend to squeeze every last cent out of the board no matter how much stock they have to issue. But, before I do that. I have to talk to Hank. Go on, the pair of you. Thank you for the report.'

  The other two left Grum slumped into his chair. What am I?

  It was not a comfortable meeting with Hank. Of course he had chatted with his old friends about how the old programmes were going, and how Core Power was run by the young whipper-snapper, but doing good. Of course he had. He may have let slip that Nevada was producing new products, showing how it was being run right!

  Grum had tried to kindly suggest that perhaps he should not take ex-colleagues so much into his confidence about secret business, especially now that people outside the company are starting to ask awkward questions.

  Hank got the meaning. He bristled. 'There's no way!'

  'You said it yourself, Hank. The four of you used to work in the old company: you, the old chief, my old veep and Gil Delgado. The three of them were buds, you said that too.'

  'It's true, but…'

  'I caused the old veep to go, whatever happened to him. I don't doubt that Gil blames me, too. And your old chief, Hank. I had everything he's done in the last five years called into question. I don't regret a single action, but you bet your arse they are not going to love me for it!'

  'It's true. What can I do, now, though? Damage done, right?'

  'Yeah, but you can make sure that nothing else leaks from this office, Hank. Because there will be things. It's not over. And just to prove it… I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do to the board, next.'

  Chapter 20

  GRUM was slumped over his desk, head in his hands. 'They're mad! And him! He's maddest of the lot! I mean, I'm mad for suggesting it, but they said yes! And Kelvin was all go! Right up for it, he was. What have I been and gone and done now?'

  'It was certainly different from how you described the first presentation,' noted Stew.

  'I think that everyone forgot their dried frog pills today and we got very, very lucky. Now, of course, we actually have to do this. And at least one of us is actually going to have to go there…'

  Stew turned, wide-eyed. 'You have got to be kidding!'

  'Yes, I am. We don't have to be there any more than we have to be at Nevada to oversee that. But some people will have to go and that probably means some people currently at Nevada, because they are the closest thing we have to expert
s.'

  'Oh those are going to be fun interviews!' Stew laughed.

  'Aren't they just! Look, I've got a meeting with Hank and Kelvin in half an hour to work out how we're going to convince the government this is a good idea and you've got to get back to trying to move the new generator designs and sizes. This is too big to solve in a day, so let's get back to running our anthills and see how things stand tomorrow.'

  'Right you are, boss.'

  'Laters,' Grum waved as Stew moseyed on out the door, then turned to the briefing material he had for his meeting. He was going to need more than three colliders at Nevada, that was for sure.

  Critical Error

  (Book 3 of the Leaving Earth Series)

  Chapter 1

  GRUM was considering juggling live hand-grenades as a bit of light relief.

  Getting the agreement to build another four colliders at Nevada had been hard enough. Trying to explain to the Nevada state government that it was neither a munitions dump, nor an unregulated power station – which had taken quite a bit of doing – was finally done and dusted. Grum's biggest problem now was that he could not switch them all on.

  All four colliders were not quite ready, in any case, but the discussions with with the state government had started him thinking about how much power they were already consuming and how much more would be needed to run the site when the new colliders went online.

  They had inadvertently discovered the issue when two of the local substations had called to complain that they were reaching maximum capacity during the testing phase for collider E. Once D had reached the operational testing phase, it was running as if it were in full-time production with the expectation that it would remain in operation from then on. So the staff had started beam alignment testing on E.

  That very nearly caused a brown-out across the site, and had caused the phone calls. So, now, the staff were restricted to completing the entire test suite for each new collider, individually, which was slowing things down enormously.

  The latest estimates were that the whole site running at full capacity would require around twelve hundred megawatts continuous load compared to the current five hundred. In percentage terms that the facility would grow from two percent of the energy consumption of the state of Nevada to five percent.

  The trouble was that it was also nearly equal to the total renewable energy generation of the state, and nearly twenty five percent the total generation capacity. To avoid breaking climate agreements, the state could not just import more electricity easily. It was looking like USSMC might have to get into the electricity generation business on a utility scale, just not in the way the board had originally thought.

  The good news with that was that most of the other departments in Core Power — which Grum had to admit to himself had been somewhat left out in the cold the last few years — would finally get to take centre stage.

  If Grum were to put all the renewable technology resources — particularly solar photovoltaics, geothermal, and biomass — into working with the existing power companies in order to upgrade or expand their existing utility-level power generation, and even fund some new builds, that might just bring the needed intra-state capacity up to the level needed.

  He would have to talk to the state government about the option of nuclear generation as well. The Nuclear Fission department within Core Power had been coming up with some very promising research on fourth and fifth generation power station designs which might overcome some of the environmental objections — his own included, if he were honest about it.

  Grum would really prefer that the maximum usage was made of renewables before resorting to other methods as they were better in almost every way, and not only in terms of overall pollution reduction. With a state like Nevada, there were vast areas of unclaimed — and near-unclaimable — land available for either solar or geothermal energy generation. The dual problem of maintenance and proximity to population centres was nowhere near as pronounced for either of those technologies as it was for almost any other. Hydroelectric could probably claim that particular crown, Grum supposed, but most of that resource was already as far as it could go in the state. Wind was another candidate, and there might be some opportunities for combined generation sites.

  The last technically carbon-neutral option was using biomass. Operating efficiencies had risen sharply in the last few years, and they could be located relatively close to population centres. Combined heat and power installations, and heat-exchanging air conditioning could be powered that way — at least to a degree.

  Grum also favoured funding a state-wide micro-generation drive, again, to see if the demand could be reduced at source.

  All these options were faster and cheaper to build than nuclear power stations. They also all started with a carbon debt and running deficit — due to their construction and operation — far less then that of either fossil or nuclear power options. Although – he had to remind himself – the fourth generation nuclear power stations would come close if they managed to follow through with the promise of re-processing and reusing previously spent nuclear fuel.

  In terms of energy consumed, the Nevada Antimatter Power Facility was already in the top ten most hungry facilities in the world. With the new colliders it would certainly make itself felt in the top five most expensive science programmes in the world, and might even contend for the second highest price tag if the contenders were limited to those remaining on-planet.

  And yet.

  If Core Power wanted to meet the demand on the commercial market, supply all the Divisions within USSMC, and meet the — now constant — pressure from governmental agencies for generators and pods, they really needed to get all four new colliders up and running as quickly as possible.

  Talks had been tentative with the government at first. USSMC did not want to give away how it found out about the prying from the various agencies, and the Whitehouse — or more particularly, the Pentagon — had not wanted to give away just how interested they were. Grum did not even try to handle that situation. He had kicked protocol to the kerb and called a meeting directly with Kelvin Goldstein and Steve Branch, in Kelvin's office. Kelvin made part of the negotiation objectives to secure additional support and funding for the UMBRA expansion, and any other research programmes they would buy in to.

  The upshot of that meeting was that Steve was reassigned for the foreseeable future as the governmental liaison. Things went more smoothly after that, and a framework for placing orders based on a heavily edited product catalogue was put in place. In the end the government had been a push-over. The extra support for UMBRA with the international community as well as getting funding to offset some of the Core Power and Space Division costs, was not as difficult to arrange as Grum might have thought.

  They only wanted two things in return for authorising the UMBRA plans. Access to all the current AM products, and advance notice of any future products. Kelvin Goldstein had agreed with alacrity and now Grum was getting orders from the military which would take years to fill.

  USSMC internal orders were nearly as bad.

  The Space Division wanted the next pod, please, "oh and since you're going to be building a huge anti-matter production site we'll need at least another sixteen". Plus a slew of orders for various size generators.

  There were orders coming in from the rest of USSMC for every size and type of generator, some trivial, some idiotic, most low priority by comparison to Space and the military.

  The commercial orders were a different kettle of fish. Grum was still waiting for the market to die off a bit, but it showed no signs of doing so. Whole new industries had sprung up in the last three years or so to take advantage of a guaranteed always-on, never-varying power source. From the tiniest generator all the way up to the mid-range there was constant demand. There had even been interest in the larger models from USSMC's space industry competitors who were looking to catch up on emergency power stakes. Grum had firmly told everyone who might have contact with th
ese people that the waiting list was already several years long and not looking likely to shorten any time soon.

  With the government coming on board, that was true even if they managed to get the expansion completed at Nevada. The good thing about the commercial side of the business was that it was generating a positive cash-flow, still. Even with the enormous costs involved there was a chance of profitability.

  Chapter 2

  AMONG the technical and political grenades which Grum was juggling, was a moral one. Actually two moral ones.

  The first was simple, direct, and utterly frustrating. USSMC — no, he — was keeping scientific advances from the public. This went against everything in him as a scientist. Since Amy completed her doctorate at MIT, and the subsequent publication of that research, he had heard of other antimatter production attempts which had quite literally blown themselves out of existence. He was sure that they would not have been so fatal if the design features built in to the Nevada Antimatter Power Facility, or those on which the pods were based, were more widely known.

  He understood about entrepreneurship, enterprise and personal choice. He perfectly comprehended that a business had the right to protect its investments. He could even sympathise, somewhat, with the position of wanting to make some profit out of your own work. The safety and social costs worried him and nagged at his sense of well being.

  The other complication was less easily defined. It had to do with the sense that he was about to start strong-arming a state government into letting USSMC do exactly what it wanted to do for very little in return, except for those directly in power. His strong suspicion was that Kelvin was not as clean a player as he appeared to be. From his own perspective, the Kelvin which Grum had always encountered, acted like an enthusiastic mentor. Over the last few years, though, very difficult and obstinate people had moved aside to let Grum advance — in one way or another – and that had Grum wondering. Especially, when he had seen some of the communications between Kelvin and the Lieutenant Governor of Nevada. The language was not exactly colluding, but it had that tone to it. It made Grum nervous.