Power Base: Book 2 of the Leaving Earth series

by Kaal Alexander Rosser

  If the old VP had not disappeared off the face of the planet as far as USSMC was concerned, Grum could cheerfully have throttled him.

  He was having some influence, but he was making precious few friends in the process. Nevertheless, he gave them all the top-line specs for the Tech Centre installation, including power output, longevity, and cost per kilowatt-hour. In return, he received a lengthy wishlist from each VP and gave a promise to look into each item regarding viability.

  On that score his greatest success was with the VP of the Space Division. There was a programme on the list where the current generators — or the new pods — would be viable.

  The cost of this programme was so vast already that adding a billion or two dollars to it was no great shakes. Emergency power for the various types of station and orbital they had planned, seemed to suit the output range of the existing generators. The specifics could be worked out, but viability was highly likely.

  That discovery sent Grum into lunchtime with a smile.

  The staff restaurant at the Tech Centre was a nice place to have a quick meal or a casual meeting. All the meat available was farmless: vat-grown and expensive. Everything else was sourced as locally as possible, as fresh as possible. The bar remained closed during the day time, but opened for a couple of hours at the end of the working day.

  Stew was already there when Grum arrived, apparently just starting his lunch. Grum gestured that he would grab something and join him, to which Stew gave an answering thumbs-up.

  'Good day, so far?' asked Grum as he sat down with his chicken ciabatta and fries.

  'About as expected. I saw you had a meeting with Kelvin Goldstein this morning.'

  'Yep. He's got yet another job for us.'

  'You're kidding? What now?'

  'Kelvin wants us to form a small department specifically to look at interoperability and interdependency between projects and departments. Given how he's reacted to our actions of the last two and a bit years I suspect that he actually wants us to go a bit further than that, we'll see.'

  'When by?'

  'No guidance on that, but the assumption always is sooner rather than later when you get requests from the CEO.'

  'True enough.' Stew took a bite of his lunch and chewed thoughtfully.

  Grum saw that they had gone for the same meal and smiled, starting on his own lunch.

  'I don't think I can take anything else on, right now,' said Stew when he had finished his mouthful. 'Amy's about due and I'm about to start paternity leave.'

  Grum swallowed. 'Yeah. I think that we get the current business under control first. You can focus on that until you go on paternity. I'll work on getting information out of the VPs about what they are doing. Oh, a little bit of success there. Space actually has a viable project for Nevada pods.'

  'Cool. Gimme the specs and I'll get them down to Ben. About Ben, by the way…'

  'Yes, he is, isn't he,' Grum interrupted. 'I'll have a talk with him. Got to open the position up for interview, of course, but he's the strongest candidate.'

  Chapter 3

  STEW and Amy's son, Clait, was born in the early hours of 31st July. The very next day Grum visited Nevada for a series of interviews and meetings, the results of which would finalise the new structure and appointments at both Nevada business units.

  Stew's paternity leave came to a finish a fortnight later and he took over the as-yet-unnamed new department within the New Energy Division. Grum had rejected outright Stew's suggestion that he call it the Department of Connections, although he admitted it was pertinent.

  They decided that the best way to introduce people to the new department and to its head was to invite all the veeps, and as many AVPs as was reasonable, to a presentation followed by a launch party.

  But first they needed a name.

  'What about something with "synergy"?'

  Grum shrugged in answer. 'Possibly "syncretise", it's closer to what we're trying to do,' Grum offered and got a shrug from Stew in return.

  'What exactly are we trying to do with it?' asked Stew of the room.

  'Pan-Divisional syncretisation. Kinda.'

  Stew blinked. 'Pandsy? No.'

  'No.' Grum agreed with a shake of his head.

  'Department for Inter-Divisional Syncretisation.'

  'Functional, bit of a mouthful, but it's got a pronounceable acronym. Trouble is that the first time we fail to deliver exactly what is demanded "DIDS" will become "DIDn'tS".'

  'Wasn't thinking of using the acronym, anyway, boss. We can do an Anne McCaffrey on it.'

  'SyncDep?'

  'Yep.'

  'Don't see why not.' Grum frowned.

  'Wassup? I think the name'll be OK, so long as it doesn't become Sync-Without-A-Trace-Dep.'

  Grum smiled a little at that, but he had something else on his mind.

  'SyncDep, since I agree on the name, doesn't belong in my Division.'

  'I know.' Stew settled down, his mood starting to match Grum's. 'We're the right people, though.'

  'Oh, yeah. Doubtless. But still… It really belongs in Core Business along with Compliance, Legal, et cetera.'

  'I suppose so. I don't think I'm ready to do a tour in Core Business, just yet,' Stew shuddered.

  Grum grinned at his friend. 'I wouldn't worry about that, for now. See, I think it's deliberate.'

  Stew raised an eyebrow quizzically, but remained schtum.

  'Originally, I thought it might be a blunder by our great and glorious Kelvin, but that didn't quite track,' said Grum while Stew contented himself with expressive eyebrow work. 'Why would our CEO see the need for SyncDep and yet miss its obvious place in the corporate structure? Answer: he wouldn't. Must be another reason. I reckon that if SyncDep were in its natural habitat in USSMC Core, the other Divisions would have no choice but to heed its directives, and probably resent it every dragging step of the way. By sticking it under New Energy we have to sell the ideas, the other Divisions have to want and accept the integration methods, and we have to demonstrate results with those who take us up in order to bring the others on board. Once it's become a ubiquitous concept Kelvin'll either disband the department or roll it into Core somewhere.'

  'I can see that. So what sort of things have you found during my time on paternity?'

  'Let's get to that in a second. While we're talking names, I have approval to change the Division's name. New Energy does not cut it.'

  'OK. We could just drop the "new".'

  'Thought about that, but it sounds pants. Energy Division. It sounds like we sap enthusiasm, and given how much bad news I've had to deliver to the various veeps over the last few weeks about powering their pet projects, it could stick.'

  'Something with "power" in it, rather than energy?'

  'That could work. What were you thinking?'

  'Power Core? Power Distribution Centre?' Stew rattled off names, but Grum just kept shaking his head. 'What about flipping it around, like, Core Power?'

  'To be honest, I quite like that. And it gives the nod to what we were just talking about.'

  'We probably don't have to worry about anyone this side of the pond coming up with something like "Cor! Power?", do we?'

  'I doubt it. OK. That'll do for naming things. We can do a dual naming and unveiling party, then.

  'Makes sense. Now, about the party…' Stew turned to where they had left the presentation plans, before they had gone on to names.

  The party had definitely been a networking success, for Stew in particular.

  The change of name from New Energy to Core Power was greeted with the normal polite applause from most, and faux-enthusiasm from the marketing department — with the notable exception of Steve Branch who kept to the applause, breaking his cover of polite attention only once to deliver a sly wink to Grum. Stew's appointment as AVP in charge of SyncDep, however, generated genuine interest. Especially when Stew promised all those there present that they would be getting individual attention and bespoke treatment directly fro
m himself, to ensure that their needs were catered for – to the best of his ability to arrange – by the best source.

  Kelvin Goldstein was on his feet and applauding wildly before the sound of Stew's last words had died away, and everyone followed suit.

  'I have a full diary for the next week,' said Stew as he came over to Grum when the press of other AVPs slackened.

  'What berk put you in charge?'

  'You did. Seems to be working, too.'

  'How so?'

  'I'm hearing about a lot of wishlist stuff, as normal, but there are one or two things which might be viable. I kept tomorrow morning clear — to the annoyance of many. I blamed you.'

  Grum laughed. 'Fair enough. I'm going to head off and say goodnight to Ju. See you in the morning.'

  'I won't be much longer, either. I've spoken with just about everyone. Tomorrow, then.'

  The following morning, they were sat in Grum's office sharing companionable mugs of coffee.

  'You said about some viable projects?' Grum prompted as the small talk waned.

  'Yes. Might help with sweetening the Nevada new build pill.'

  'Real viable projects?'

  'Ones the might just translate into fillable orders, in fact.'

  'Ah, justifiable expenditure.' Grum smiled.

  'But the single collider output at Nevada won't cope,' said Stew.

  'I take it you've worked out how much production capacity we'd need?' Stew nodded, hesitantly. 'Show me the numbers.'

  Stew obliged. His summaries, calculations, assumptions and preliminary design notes sprang into life on the wall and the office obediently darkened.

  'Without any modification, the Nevada collection rig can be augmented by an upgrade of the production assembly to produce twice the mass of our old design. With minor adjustments it could also produce half-size masses, no problem. Trouble is that we'd need to design new containment chambers and the generator facility is not set up to handle smaller chambers in its current factory…' Stew started, but Grum jumped in.

  'Let's see if I can follow the chain of reasoning from there: new factory units to handle the new chambers, but we still only have two or three sizes of AM generator at the end. I know there's been interest from other parties, and we can't let production on the main generators slack either at the AM production stage or the power-plant manufacturing stage. So, we need, er, two new colliders designed to produce antimatter from the centigram scale down to the picogram orders of magnitude?' Stew nodded, and Grum continued his speculations. 'To make use of that we'd have to build out the generator plant so that it could make several sizes. Since the collector points would have to be moved anyway, say three stations sited where the colliders are proximal? That way two colliders could be serviced from any one station. We could use the entire old complex and build out from there for the generator factories.'

  Stew remained silent but selected two files. As they sprang into sight Grum saw that the first was a bullet-point list and the second a diagram of Stew's conception for the new layout of the Nevada facilities. Stew had gone into more detail, but essentially Grum had covered the major points. 'With the production feeds going into the single decelerator and capture rig,' Stew said, 'it is also possible to increase the captured mass, if Ben can figure out the details. It's not true recombination as it all still happens in the same run, but we could go triple the single accelerator mass.'

  'That will please some people,' said Grum.

  'Unfortunately, we need to do this to service the needs of Space Division and beyond, and we need to do it quickly. Which is where we run into the holy triumvirate.'

  'Fast, cheap, good. You have any two of the three,' quoth Grum. 'Well, we know what normally gets sacrificed, but if KG really sees the AM generators as enabling the rest of the company then we'll need to spend money to do it.'

  'I have the scaries, here.' Stew brought up the figures for the plans.

  'You realise that, in total, that's quadruple what I spent during my entire tenure there?'

  'And we'll be getting between six and eight times the production facilities.'

  'New accommodations included? I assume it'll mean upping the workforce significantly,' Grum asked.

  'We'd have to build new accommodations anyway,' said Stew said, looking at the figures. Grum projected a quizzical silence field until Stew finally noticed that there had been no response, and turned to face Grum's querying eyebrow. 'One of the collider control and collector sites will have to go about 4 miles due north of the current facility…'

  'Which is where the apartment complex is. I see.'

  'There is one other point…'

  'Yes?'

  'Well, since we haven't done our re-design, yet, these builds will be essentially modifications of the current design. It's nowhere near properly scalable, but…' Stew shrugged, expressively.

  'We're not waiting until we've got the time to do the full re-design to ramp up production. Most of the re-design is to try and have recombination and we don't need that to make smaller units, nor these multipliers. Do you have this lot in the form of a proper report? Thanks. I need to have a chat with our CEO about near-future budgets…'

  Kelvin was obviously still pumped from the presentation the night before, because he did not bat an eyelid at the projected expenditure, but signed off as if it were a petty cash request.

  The best of the prospects which Stew have left with Grum had been Space related — as had come to be expected — so Grum sent an informal message to the VP of that Division asking for a chat.

  Chapter 4

  VP Space, Henry "Hank" Bowers, had a nicer office, overall, as far as Grum was concerned. Grum's office was near the centre of the building, just down the corridor from the observation platform where most of the public tours ended up. Very useful position, but no windows. Bowers had fewer screens on his walls, an outer office with a dedicated assistant, and large windows.

  Git, thought Grum. He did not let his complete lack of gruntles show, though, because Space was the most receptive of the Divisions to the real generator abilities.

  'Tell me, Grum. What kind of production capacity will you have after the accelerator builds are completed?' Grum could not place Hank's accent. It was certainly more westerly, but that was as much as he could tell.

  'In terms of antimatter mass, it's a simple multiplier: six time as much. However, with the new capture and containment array the guys down in Nevada have devised, we can make different sizes of cell on any given run. For the largest cells that we have been talking about, it would be that times-six factor. Double the mass and triple the units.'

  'And what mass for each of these generators?'

  'For the biggest, that would be three hundred kilos.'

  'That's a lot smaller than the first lot…'

  'I'm not a very good engineer, Hank. Ben Abelson — the guy running the plant, now — is much better than I am.'

  'Sounds like you made a good choice with him.'

  'One of the best so far.'

  'And the power output of one of these big ones?'

  'Total output over its lifetime would be two hundred and eighty megawatt-hours. Continuous output would depend on what lifetime was chosen.'

  'Over twenty five years?'

  'One point three kilowatts.'

  'Not enough. These "pods"?'

  'Twenty six generators in each pod.'

  'How long to produce?'

  'At thirteen runs per year, two years. But that would be exclusive running, just to produce those.'

  Hank waved that away. 'Just speculating. One of these pods would produce what? Thirty kilowatts?'

  'About twenty nine, there are some losses involved every time we add a layer of abstraction.'

  'OK, and the mass would be?'

  'Just over eight tonnes.' Grum did not know where Hank was going with these rapid-fire questions. He did seem to have something specific in mind, Grum just wished he would say it aloud. 'Look, Hank, if you've got something i
n mind…'

  'Well, sure! A couple of things. Several types of orbital platform and there's the moon-mars shuttle.'

  'Do you know the power requirements? Rather than trying to do the maths in our heads, I do have an app for that.'

  'Do you, now? Don't suppose you'd like to share?'

  'Of course I will! Bear in mind, that I designed it and…'

  'You're not an engineer, I know. Not a software engineer either, I'd guess. OK. Hit me.'

  Grum pulled out his phone, pointed it at the larger of the two screens on Hank's wall and let his hand hang motionless for a second while he raised both eyebrows in polite query. Hank gave him a good-natured get-the-hell-on-with-it roll of the hand, and Grum zapped the app over to the screen.

  'Right. What are the power requirements?'

  'Let's do emergency power on a research orbital, first. That works out at about thirty kilowatts for the always-on systems.'

  Grum put the figure in, selected the lifespan and the type of generator they were talking about, and the app spat out several rows of numbers.

  'Nearly a year to produce the generators?' asked Hank.

  'Yes. If we do nothing else. Longer, if we have to make generators for anyone else.'

  'And that figure? Crap! That's the cost!'

  'Yep. The cost for individual generators. Not enough to fill a pod.'

  'Over six hundred million dollars!' Hank was clearly flabbergasted, and Grum was enjoying it. The normally imperturbable man had let his guard down a bit.

  'Yep. And that is the internal-to-USSMC price. We're not making a margin, here.'

  'Well. I suppose that is actually less of a worry than the time. And it gets swallowed up in the overall cost of building an orbital platform. OK. Good to know. Let's try the shuttle.'

  'OK, what are the numbers?'