Radiation Hazard (The Stasis Stories #3)

by Laurence Dahners

“Relax Gunnar. We just set the vacuum high enough it squeezed the waffle cloth below one millimeter in those areas.”

  “Easy for you to say ‘relax,’” Gunnar grumped. “You’re not the one who made a bunch of jacket panels that’re ruined.”

  “Calm down big guy. We’ll just de-staze the panels, then decrease the vacuum and re-staze them. I’ll bet the waffle cloth re-expands and works just fine.”

  “Ah… Forgot we could do that…” Gunnar grumped in a chastened tone.

  They cut the vacuum by two-thirds and re-stazed. It worked, producing jacket panels that seemed perfect.

  “Okay,” Kaem said, “Shall we try stazing your big blimp?”

  “Sure,” Gunnar said, which was about as enthusiastic as the crotchety man ever sounded. “Though, remember, this one isn’t all that big.”

  “Yeah, but it may be bigger than even the new heavy-duty version of the stazer will staze. We need to try it and find out.”

  Gunnar had ordered the Mylar assembled into a blimp at the factory and delivered as a big roll. Currently, that was under a tarp out at one end of their largely unused parking lot. Gathering Lee, they started out to the lot. Lee and Kaem were carrying the unwieldy stazer and Gunnar was pushing the cart carrying the heavy power source, power conditioner, and other non-proprietary equipment.

  They found Arya working at the desk in the anteroom. Kaem asked, “What are you doing out here? Too good to hang out with us peons in the main room?”

  Arya rolled her eyes. He was afraid she was going to say something about how he wasn’t funny, but instead, she said, “Can’t get any work done with you guys yapping all the time.”

  “We’re going to try unrolling the form for Gunnar’s blimp. Can you give us a hand?”

  Arya sighed and got up, “I thought I was the brains of this outfit. Didn’t know I was supposed to be the brawn too.” Kaem thought she looked glad to break away from working on business plans and accounting.

  Even with all four of them, unrolling the big bundle of Mylar was difficult. But they got it done.

  Kaem and Gunnar set to work tying the blimp down to pairs of Stade stakes they’d driven in the day before. Because of Stade’s propensity to back out, one stake went through a hole in the other at an angle, then they were tied together. They didn’t want the big balloon blowing around once they had it inflated. If it did some damage to neighboring property that’d be ugly.

  Arya and Lee went back to their own projects.

  As soon as Kaem and Gunnar had both ends tied down, Gunnar started the pump inflating the Mylar. It looked like it’d barely started inflating by the time they’d finished the rest of the tie-downs.

  As they headed back into the building, Kaem asked, “How much will this blimp lift?”

  Gunnar shrugged, “I haven’t worked it out. We should be able to pump the vacuum down far enough to lift 0.08 pounds per cubic foot.”

  Kaem turned to look back at the blimp. “What’s its diameter?”

  “Fifty feet.”

  “How long is it?”

  “A hundred and ten feet, but it’s tapering at the ends so you can’t calculate it as a cylinder.”

  Kaem shrugged, “If you called it a hundred-foot cylinder as an estimate, it’d lift about 16,000 pounds, or eight tons.”

  “If you say so.”

  Kaem grinned, “Next time we need to lift eight tons, we’ll know how to do it.”

  “Don’t forget you’re gonna need to subtract the weight of the pump and any motors you’re going to fly it around with. The damned pump alone weighs 800 pounds.”

  “What if we only attached the pump to it, then towed it around with a rope from the ground? Used some kind of remote to control the pump and release the vacuum?”

  Gunnar rolled his eyes and shook his head, “You’re trying to take all the fun out of it.”

  Kaem laughed, “You’d be able to use it without a pilot’s license and it’d still lift seven and a half tons.”

  Gunnar scoffed disgustedly. “Let’s go get some lunch.”

  They’d come to like the food at Dimitri’s, a little Greek restaurant down the street. They checked with Lee and Arya. Soon all four of them were leaving for the restaurant. As they walked away, Lee looked over at the parking lot and asked, “Is that pump gonna overinflate your blimp and burst it while we’re eating lunch? I’d hate to come back and find Gunnar’s dreams in tatters.”

  Gunnar stopped and turned to stare back at it.

  Kaem asked, “How many cubic feet per minute does that pump move?”

  “Eighty-five.”

  Kaem laughed, “I think you can relax. It’s gonna be tomorrow evening before your blimp’s full.”

  Gunnar snorted, “If that’s so, I’m gonna have to put more gas in the damned pump before it’s done.” He turned to continue toward the restaurant. After a moment he laughed. “It must be nice, havin’ a calculator in your head and all.”

  Kaem glanced at Arya as he sighed theatrically, “Yeah, but apparently, I had to give up a sense of humor to get it.”

  Lee laughed, but Arya just shook her head and said, “Still not funny Kaem.”

  Even more depressing, when they got to Dimitri’s, Arya sat next to Lee on one side of the booth. This left Kaem sitting next to Gunnar.

  The food was good though.

  They moved the big stazer and the power cart back into the building since it wasn’t going to be needed until the next evening.

  ***

  Carl Norton got out of the taxi at the address for Staze Inc. and looked around. There was a large, partially-inflated, silvery bag in one of the two parking lots. Looks like one of those bags movie stuntmen jump onto, Carl thought.

  He looked at the building. There wasn’t a sign saying “Staze” or any other way to be sure he was at the right place so he told the taxi to wait while he went in to check.

  As he walked up to the door, he looked again at the big softly-inflated bag, then glanced up into the sky, wondering if someone could be trying to jump out of a plane onto it. Nothing was up there.

  No sign declared the place open or closed, so he tried the knob. The door came open, so Carl stepped inside. A pretty Indian receptionist sat at a desk staring at a large monitor with a bunch of windows open on it. Carl said, “Hi honey. Is this Staze Incorporated? There aren’t any signs.”

  She frowned at him but nodded. “Who are you?”

  “Dr. Carl Norton from GLI. I’m supposed to look for a Mr. Seba? The CEO?”

  She frowned, but then nodded at the next door, “He’s in the big room.”

  Carl turned back to the outside door saying, “I’m just gonna get my bag and tell the taxi it can go.”

  A few minutes later he came back in, parked his suitcase against a wall and, seeing a door labeled “bathroom” went in there first. Done, he headed on through the door the receptionist had indicated. There he found a big room but only three people. An Asian girl, a young black guy, and Mr. Seba. As he walked over to the CEO, he noted that the older man looked a little rough around the edges. But the guy supposedly invented Stade, so he’s either lucky or smart, Carl reminded himself. Approaching, he stuck out his hand and said, “Hello, Mr. Seba, I’m Dr. Carl Norton from GLI. I’m supposed to help you guys for a while?”

  A funny expression flitted across the man’s face, then his features settled back to where they’d been. “What kind of doctor are you?”

  “Ph.D. in Aerospace engineering. I used to teach at U. of W. but I decided I needed to get out into the real world and actually use my degree.”

  “And Jerry Branzon sent you to help us?”

  “Well, not Mr. Branzon himself. I work for Green Launch Initiative, his rocketry company. My understanding is that he asked them to send an engineer down to you guys and the head engineer at GLI chose me.”

  The man leaned back against a table, crossed his arms over his chest, and said, “And what are you supposed to help us with?”

  Feeling a littl
e confused, Carl glanced around. The Asian girl was watching him with round eyes. The black guy just looked amused. “Um, my understanding is that you won a bid to sell GLI some rocket engines using your new material, Stade. Since my Ph.D. was in engine design, I assumed I’d be helping you optimize an engine that takes advantage of your material’s amazing properties.”

  “I see,” the old guy said, glancing at the young black guy, then back at Carl. “And what do you know about how we make… engines?”

  “I understand it’s something like casting. That you need to make a mirrored mold that a liquid base material can be poured into. Then you do something that turns the base material into the Stade. Um, I’m hoping you’ll let me tweak the molds for the combustion chamber and nozzle. For instance, you shouldn’t need nearly as much cryo plumbing around them to keep them cool since Stade will tolerate those high temperatures. Maybe just a single pass around the nozzle to heat the fuel and oxidizer toward combustion temperatures.”

  The old man studied Carl a moment, then said, “What about the fact that Stade’s a perfect insulator?”

  Carl nodded eagerly, “That’ll be great for the cryotanks won’t it? I’ll have to look at your designs for them before I’ll know if I can come up with any ideas for changes on the tanks.”

  Sounding slightly exasperated, the man asked, “What about the fact that Stade won’t transfer any of the heat out of the nozzle into those loops in the fuel and oxidizer feeds?”

  Carl blinked, “Surely it’ll transfer some?”

  The old man slowly shook his head. “None. Not one iota. What about the fact that Staze, that’s us, doesn’t design engines or make molds? GLI has to make its own molds and then we’ll be happy to form Stade in them. As far as we’re concerned GLI can design the molds for its nozzles and combustion chambers any way they want.” He tilted his head, “Though you may want to talk to us about how you’re intending to do it, just to be sure we can form Stade in your design.”

  Carl stared. Slowly, he said, “What mold designs are you using at present?”

  “So far, we’ve cast one small engine and one small cryotank in molds provided by Space-Gen. Based on what they learned, I assume they’re planning to have us cast full-sized ones soon.” He glanced at the young Asian woman, “I doubt they want to share any of their design ideas with you.”

  Carl was getting irritated. “So, you’re saying you aren’t going to make the molds? You feel like your only responsibility is casting Stade into molds provided by GLI?”

  The old man nodded slowly.

  “I don’t think GLI’s going to be happy when I report this to them.”

  The old man opened his mouth, looking like he was about to bark a retort, but the young black guy put a hand on his arm. This seemed to calm him. The black fellow said, “I think you just haven’t been given very good information on how all this is supposed to work. I’m sure if you talk to the people who sent you, they should be able to provide a better outline. Perhaps they could even give you a copy of the contract between GLI and Staze? If you want, I could go over the agreement with you.”

  Exasperated, Carl asked, “And just who the hell are you?”

  “I’m Kaem Seba.”

  “What?!” Carl frowned, then looked at the older man, “Is this some kind of joke?”

  The old guy snorted, “I guess. You were so all-fired sure I was Seba, I hated to disabuse you of the notion.”

  “But your receptionist said… I guess she didn’t tell me anything. You might want to have a word with her…”

  Carl ground to a halt as the older man first looked puzzled, then it seemed a light had dawned. He broke into a guffaw. “Receptionist! That’s rich! If you do come to work for us, you’d better stay on her good side. She’s the one who’d arrange your paycheck.”

  Carl drew himself up. “I work for GLI, not for you.”

  “That’s good,” the old guy said, “’Cause I don’t think we’d be willing to put up with a stuffed shirt asshole like you.” He waved the back of his hand toward the door in a dismissing motion, “Go on, get out of here.”

  Carl backed away, furious. “We’ll see what GLI has to say about this!”

  Though the black guy looked amused, he made calming motions with his hands, “Wait, I think this is all a misunderstanding. If I could just explain—”

  “No!” Carl said, the words exploding out of him. “It’s too damn late for that. I think you’ve just lost your contract.”

  The black kid made as if to come after Carl, but the old guy put a restraining hand on his arm, “No, let the prick go.”

  As Carl’s eyes swept the room on his way out, he saw the Asian girl grinning at him like she knew something he didn’t.

  When Carl stepped out into the anteroom, the receptionist who supposedly arranged paychecks glared at him.

  Carl said, “What’s your problem?”

  “You are. You left a mess in the bathroom. If you’re gonna work here, you’re gonna need to shape up your act.”

  “I am not gonna work here,” Carl fumed as he grabbed his bags, stalked across the anteroom, and slammed out the door.

  Out in the parking lot, Carl realized he needed to call a taxi. It was hot out, so he wished he’d done it before leaving the building, but he certainly wasn’t going back inside. Once he’d summoned the taxi, he called George Meade, his boss at GLI. As soon as Meade said hello, Carl began describing his dismay. “Mr. Meade, these people at Staze are… I don’t know how to describe it, but I don’t think it’s the kind of place GLI wants to be doing business with.”

  There was a moment of silence, then Meade said, “You’ve got to be kidding me. Why in hell would you think that?”

  Carl swallowed. It hadn’t been the response he’d expected. “I’ve just left their building. It’s a big building, but there’re only four people working there…” Meade didn’t say anything, so Carl continued, “They’ve got a receptionist out front. Believe it or not, they say she manages their salaries on the side. Then inside this black guy…” Carl paused, struck by a thought, “Um, do you know what Seba himself looks like?”

  “Young, light-skinned black man, not very tall, looks… sick.”

  Shit! Carl thought, The little black guy was Seba?! “Um, I thought another guy was Seba and started talking to him. Neither of them corrected me. They just let me make a fool of myself.”

  Meade gave out a pained moan. “That’s not hard to do,” Meade said cryptically. “Let me guess, there was a white guy there so you assumed he had to be Seba, right? Couldn’t imagine Seba might be the black guy, could you?”

  “Well…” Carl said uncertainly, a sick feeling welling up.

  Meade said, “I thought this was the perfect assignment for a technically-bright, people-skill-free jerk like you. That you’d be good at figuring out how to make molds for rocket engines, since your doctoral thesis was on engine design. I didn’t think you could screw this up, but unfortunately, I didn’t realize how biased you are.”

  “I’m not a racist!” Carl said, appalled.

  “Yeah,” Meade said with a sigh. “You probably don’t think you are. But you’ve got deeply ingrained racial biases. Ones you don’t recognize. Like the one that tells you the white guy must be the inventor and the black guy must be some kind of worker drone.” He shook his head, “We probably all have our own prejudices to fight, but you’re so clueless you don’t even know you have ’em. So clueless you can’t even admit it when your biases have made you do something ugly.”

  “Um, did you know that they expect us to make the molds for the engines and they’re only planning to pour the Stade into them?”

  “Yes, Carl,” Meade said, sounding sad. “I told you that when I briefed you for this trip, but you weren’t paying attention to the details, were you? You’re a big picture guy, right?”

  “But… I’m telling you Mr. Meade; this Staze is a small-time operation. Four people! This isn’t the kind of business GLI wants to be work
ing with!”

  “Carl…” Meade sighed. “Stade, Carl. Where the hell else would we get it?”

  “But they’re charging so much for it and they’re not even doing the design or build work.”

  “Carl… once we get a good engine design, they’ll pour us a bunch, all using the same mold. The engines they cast will last forever. Or, at least until they’re outdated by better designs. They’ll cast rocket bodies with integral tanks. Again, those’ll last forever. Even if we wreck them, we can just dig them out of the hole they made in the ground and use them again. Were you paying attention to the fact that Stade blocks radiation? Have you thought about the fact that meteoroids can’t puncture it? We can’t build spacecraft or habitats for humans out of anything else anymore. It’d be irresponsible to the astronauts. We’ve got to work with those people.”

  “Um, my taxi just pulled up. What do you want me to do?”

  “Hell, Carl, I don’t care as long as you don’t go back in there and do anything else to piss those people off. I’ve gotta call ‘em and tell ‘em we fired you and hope that’ll calm ’em down. If you can get some training in people skills and can come back and prove you’ve stopped being such a pompous asshole, maybe I can get you your old job back.” Meade sighed again, “But, I’ll tell you, you’re gonna have to make a huge effort to change yourself. And, you’ll need to hope GLI hasn’t fired me for sending you out there.”

  ~~~

  Back inside the building, as Carl Norton left the big room, Gunnar and Lee turned to look wide-eyed at Kaem.

  He grinned as he said, “That went well, didn’t it?”

  Lee cut loose with peals of laughter. Soon Gunnar and Kaem joined her.

  They were just getting themselves in control when Arya jerked the door open and stood in the frame, hipshot and looking irritated. She said, “I hope you guys aren’t laughing about that Norton guy. He was not funny.”

  Gunnar snorked, then nudged Kaem with an elbow, “Well, a receptionist wouldn’t think so, would she?”

  Eyes flashing, Arya stepped fully into the big room and put her hands on her hips, “Tell me that jerk didn’t think I was the receptionist.”