The Thunder of Engines Read online

  “And what do you want?”

  Kaem looked thoughtful, “I’d like there to be competition out in space, so I don’t want anyone to have a monopoly on engines in the long run. But we need start-up capital to fund our other projects, right? So, I’d go for giving them an exclusive contract to buy engines and containers for, say, three to five years. That big chunk of money would let us get started with other projects and we could still let other companies back into the launch industry later. Also, a limit on the length of their exclusive deal would make sure Space-Gen started buying engines from us right away since they’d need to make hay while the sun was shining.”

  “Why wouldn’t they buy engines right away?”

  Kaem shrugged, “If their contract’s not time-limited, then there’s no reason for them to hurry. Our downside is that we don’t get enough orders to maximize the growth of our company. The world’s downside is that it doesn’t get into space as fast as it wants to.”

  Arya drew back and gave him an appraising look, “That’s… devious. I like it. You’re more of a businessperson than I gave you credit for.”

  Kaem shook his head, “I think of it as aligning people’s motivations with what’s best for everyone.”

  Lee returned. Sitting down, she said, “I’ve gotten word to our Chief Technology Officer and he’s promised to get you your money ASAP.”

  The waiter brought Arya her fish sandwich. Kaem spoke to Lee, “Are you still wanting to see our setup?”

  Lee had just taken a bite and started chewing, but she nodded eagerly.

  “I’m going to head on over there now then. Gunnar and I’ll get a demonstration set up for you. We should be able to make a few test samples like the ones we sent you, okay?”

  Lee swallowed, “Sure. I’d love to see it. Any chance you could cast something with a more complex shape?”

  Kaem frowned, “We… don’t have any molds for anything with a complex shape… But, I’ve had an idea we could try. Maybe it’d give you confidence that we could cast something shaped like the bell of an engine nozzle.”

  “That’d be great!”

  Kaem nodded, “Arya’ll bring you over when you guys are done eating.”

  Arya turned to Lee, speaking as if in confidence, “This is the way it is, working with Kaem. He’s always running out before the check comes, sticking someone else with the bill.”

  Kaem dug in his pocket, saying, “Oh! Sorry.”

  Lee waved him off, “Oh, don’t worry about the bill, Space-Gen’s covering lunch.”

  “Ooh,” Arya said, rubbing her hands together. “An expense account? We really should’ve gone someplace expensive!”

  ~~~

  Kaem had his phone order an Uber before he even got out the door of the Cavalier Buffalo but still had a few minutes to wait on the sidewalk. He spent them thinking furiously.

  When the Uber got there, he told it to take him to the Dollar Store first. There, telling the Uber’s AI to wait, he went in and got a small glass drink tumbler and some aluminum foil. On his way out he passed a Mylar balloon display. Having a sudden thought, he turned around, went back, and grabbed a shiny metalized one.

  Next, he had the Uber take him to the dorm where he picked up the electronics for creating stade.

  Back in the Uber, he gave it the address of their new rental property.

  Pulling up to the building, he took in its industrial metal exterior, suddenly thinking of how it would look to others. It’s functional, Kaem thought, which is what I wanted, but now I can see why Arya was less than thrilled.

  When he got to the door, it was unlocked. He walked through the anteroom to find Gunnar in the main workroom, setting up a couple of the folding tables the building came with. He’d also put out a set of six chairs. Gunnar looked at Kaem and growled, “This is FUBAR.”

  “What’s that mean?” Kaem asked, pulling up the rolling suitcase that contained his rack of electronic gear.

  “You don’t wanna know,” Gunnar grumbled. “How much time do we have?”

  “I don’t know. Arya’s bringing her when they’ve finished lunch.”

  “They’re getting lunch?! We’re gettin’ the short end of the stick.”

  Rather than admit he’d already had lunch and gotten it on Space-Gen’s dime, Kaem said, “I made a couple of stops on the way here, so they might get here pretty soon.” He turned to the door. “I’ve got to go back out to the Uber and get another load.”

  As he walked away, Gunnar asked, “You want me to set up the mold for the six-inch cubes, or just the one for the test samples?”

  Kaem glanced around the big room and said, “The more the better. We’re looking pretty bare here.”

  When Kaem got back, Gunnar had both of their “molds” set up on the table. Kaem tried setting the tumbler in the cube and was relieved to see it fit. He said, “Gunnar, I’ve had an idea.”

  “Oh no,” Gunnar said, as if something terrible had happened.

  “What’s the matter?” Kaem asked.

  “You’ve had an idea.”

  Kaem laughed, “Come on. They aren’t all bad.”

  “Well, no,” Gunnar said, “I’ll admit you did have one good one. But the rest of them have meant more work for me.”

  “You and Arya are such pessimists it’s astonishing I ever get a chance to smile.” Kaem waved as if dismissing Gunnar’s concerns. “Ms. Lee, the Space-Gen engineer who’s here, asked if we could make any more complex shapes. I think their concern is that we might only be able to make simple polyhedrons, not rocket engines.”

  Gunnar looked contemplative. “I guess she might be right, but I’ll bet she isn’t.”

  “Well, me too,” Kaem said, tearing off a sheet of aluminum foil. He started stuffing it into the mouth of the tumbler, saying, “But I’d like to be able to prove her wrong. It occurred to me that if we put a glass in the cube, covered inside and out with aluminum foil, that it might make a recess somewhat like a rocket nozzle in one of the faces of the cube.” He started wrapping the outside of the tumbler in foil. Finishing, he set the foil-covered tumbler in the cube upside down, with the mouth of the tumbler resting on the bottom mirror inside the cube.

  Gunnar studied it a moment, then said, “I see what you’re going for, but the laser light in the mirrors surrounding the cube’s cavity isn’t going to get past the mirror’s silvering and into the walls of that drinking glass.”

  “Yeah, I was thinking we’d have to scrape the silver off the mirror where it’s in contact with the glass.”

  Gunnar rolled his eyes. “Then you’ll want me to silver it again?”

  “Not if this proves aluminum foil makes a ‘good-enough’ mirror.”

  Arya opened the door. Gunnar leaned close and said, “If we could’ve been using aluminum foil the whole time, instead of me having to silver these damned things, I’m gonna be pissed!”

  “I’ll be apologetic,” Kaem said with a grin before turning toward the door. “Hi, Ms. Lee.” He indicated Gunnar, “This is Mr. Gunnar Schmidt. He’s our expert fabricator.”

  Lee distractedly shook hands with Schmidt, but her eyes were mostly on the forms for the cube and the testing samples. Stepping closer, she said, “So, silvered glass like you said? Can I take pictures?”

  “Uh-huh,” Kaem said, turning the rack of electronics so he was looking at the back. He opened the door and started jacking wires into the backs of the components.

  Lee started around the table, saying, “What do you have there?”

  Kaem turned the rack so she wouldn’t be able to see what was wired to what. “Sorry, this part’s confidential. No pictures over here.”

  “But… We’ve got that NDA,” Lee said, longingly.

  “Hmm,” Kaem said, “I don’t believe we actually have a contract yet, do we?” he glanced at Arya.

  Arya said, “I’ll check,” and started mumbling into her phone. A moment later she shook her head and said, “No. Should we even be doing a demonstration?”


  Gunnar said, “What do you mean we don’t have a contract?!”

  Arya said, “It’s signed, but it doesn’t go into force until they’ve paid us that million-dollar retainer. They haven’t deposited it yet.”

  Gunnar drew back, “Hell no we shouldn’t be giving demonstrations!”

  Mildly, Kaem said, “The contract only says we can’t agree to a deal with anyone else without talking to Space-Gen. I’ve realized I’m not even sure why they’d want to pay us for a contract to that effect. They can pretty much count on us to ask them for a better bid if someone makes us an offer. We’d be foolish not to.”

  Arya and Gunnar looked at one another. Kaem could almost hear them thinking, But we need that money! And, why in the hell is Kaem letting Lee know he has such thoughts?!

  Arya looked down at her phone. “I’ve got a call from Martin Aerospace.” She turned and strode to the door. As she stepped out into the anteroom she said, “Hello?”

  Kaem looked at Lee. Her jaw looked tense. She said, “Is Staze just the three of you so far?”

  Kaem nodded affably. “You want us to make a piece of stade for you?”

  Eager now, Lee said, “Yes, please.”

  Sounding on-edge, Gunnar said, “I’m not sure this’s a good idea.”

  Kaem spoke placatingly, “We’re only going to show her how our part would work if Space-Gen sends us a mold.” He stretched out a hand holding the cables, both the electrical cable to the radar emitter and the fiberoptic laser light-guide cables.

  After rolling his eyes, Gunnar took them. He asked reluctantly, “Which… form… do you want to hook up first?”

  Kaem closed up the back of the rack and turned it around. “Let’s make her a cube first,” he said. He opened the front door of the rack so he could start setting the controls on the electronic modules.

  “You, um,” Gunnar started, then after a moment’s thought, went on, “You want me to take the aluminum foil out of it for this run?”

  “Uh-huh,” Kaem responded, continuing to set switches and turn dials to the proper settings. “Have you got enough of the base liquid for it?” This was in the way of a reminder. He and Gunnar had talked about making a stade containing water because just closing it up with nothing in it—except air—would suggest that they weren’t doing something to a “material” and provide a hint that they were doing something to space-time itself. Kaem didn’t think it was a hint that would let anyone replicate the stazer, but it wouldn’t hurt to play it safe.

  Gunnar opened the door of the cube form so it kept Lee from seeing as he took out Kaem’s foil-wrapped glass. Then he turned the form onto its back. He bent and came up with a couple of unlabeled liter bottles from a box on the floor. Kaem knew they were water but hoped Lee might think they were something else. Gunnar started pouring them in.

  Kaem did the math. A fifteen-centimeter cube holds… 3.375 liters. He’d been thinking it would be considerably less. I hope Gunnar’s got a couple more bottles.

  This proved to be the case and Gunnar soon had the cube filled with water. He leveled it a little with a folded bit of paper, then added a tiny bit more water until it bulged up a little under surface tension. Gunnar looked up at Kaem and Kaem gave him a nod.

  Gunnar slowly closed the door and latched it, squeezing out a few drops of water.

  Kaem put on a look of intense concentration as he flipped a series of switches and adjusted a dial. He set back and pulled out his phone, setting a timer on it.

  Gunnar said, “The capacitor—”

  “Got to let it catalyze, remember?” Kaem said, wanting the process to look much more complicated than it was. He hoped Gunnar would understand and play along.

  Gunnar looked flummoxed for a moment, then the corner of his mouth turned up the tiniest bit just before turning serious again. “Oh yeah. Sorry.”

  After a minute, the phone’s timer went off. Kaem looked up and made another series of adjustments to the electronics. Once again, he sat back to watch the numbers count down on the phone’s timer. This time when it went off, he flipped a large switch on his gear, one that made a loud snap. He looked up at Gunnar and said, “Check it please?”

  Gunnar gave him a questioning look, probably because—not having heard the capacitor charge and discharge—he knew no stade had been formed. Nonetheless, he carefully turned the latch and slightly opened the door. Looking up at Kaem, he shook his head.

  Kaem said, “It’s stizzled though, right?”

  Gunnar nodded, looking worried. Kaem thought Gunnar was concerned that Kaem was carrying the masquerade too far, not that Kaem couldn’t get it to work.

  “Okay, close it up again. We’ll staze it this time.”

  Kaem made more adjustments, this time setting it up correctly. When Gunnar heard the capacitor charging, he looked relieved. When it snapped, Gunnar started reaching for the latch before Kaem finished saying, “That should’ve done it. Let’s have a look.”

  As Gunnar slowly opened the door to reveal the reflecting surface of the stade’s perfect mirror, Kaem surreptitiously flipped random switches and twisted knobs just in case Lee somehow got a look at the settings. If she did, he didn’t want her to learn anything.

  Gunnar turned the box over, but the stade wouldn’t fall out. Setting it back on its side, he got out his knife and worked it in between the stade and the sides of the box to break the seal on the vacuum holding the stade inside. This time when he tipped it, the stade readily slid out, thumped onto the table, slid across, and fell to the floor, skidding across the room. Kaem got up and moved that direction, but when Lee went after it, he let her.

  Showing her experience with stade, she corralled it rather than trying to grab it. “This is a lot heavier than the test specimens you sent us,” she said, obviously puzzled as to how she was going to lift it when she couldn’t get a grip on it.

  Kaem said, “One hand stops it down low, the other hand tips it up, then slides under. Then you can get both hands under and around the lower corner.”

  Lee did so and walked back toward them, staring down at the block of stade as if mesmerized. “How do you control the mass? The test specimens had such low density they essentially floated in the air.”

  Kaem said, “We can make them even lower density than that. And, we can make high-density stade as well.”

  “Lower density than air? So, they’d float up like a helium balloon?”

  Worried that saying “yes” might twig her to the fact that it depended on what you filled the mold with, Kaem said, “Even lower density than that.”

  She looked a little suspicious, “Like the density of hydrogen?”

  “Even lower than that,” Kaem said, thinking, Vacuum.

  “Oh,” Lee said, looking puzzled, which was just what Kaem wanted. After a moment, she asked, “What would you use higher density stade for?”

  Has she simply been too focused on uses in rocketry, or is she wondering whether we’ve considered the possibilities for using stade outside the aerospace industry? Kaem wondered. He thought of a way to answer without answering and said, “If you wanted a blast shield under your rocket’s launch site, it’d be nice if it weighed enough that it wouldn’t blow away, right?”

  She nodded thoughtfully as if she’d found his answer enlightening but not giving Kaem any insight into the motivation of her question.

  Kaem stepped over to speak quietly to Gunnar. “You think you could trim the foil and try scraping away the silver under where the glass would sit? I’d like to try my idea.”

  “Yeah,” Gunnar said. Unsurprisingly, he sounded exasperated.

  Kaem turned back to Lee. “You want me to make you a test sample?”

  She brightened, “Yes, please. Um, can I take another look at the sample mold first?”

  Kaem said, “Sure.” He started disconnecting the cords and fiberoptic cables from the cube-shaped stade form, then waited for her to finish studying the form for the test samples so he could attach the leads to it.

&n
bsp; Lee had picked up the test-sample form and started examining it from all angles. Saying, “Confusing to look at with all the reflections, but seems simple enough,” she set it back down and took a couple more pictures.

  Kaem connected the cables to it, then picked up Gunnar’s partially empty water bottle and, behind the cover of the opened lid, made as if he was pouring a dollop of water into that form the way Gunnar had into the cube-shaped one.

  Lee stepped his way as if to look at the water in the form, but Kaem managed to close and latch the form before she could see it was empty. He went through his routine of several sets of adjustments of the switches and dials, glad to see Gunnar hard at work scraping inside the cube.

  When the capacitor finally snapped, Kaem stepped over and popped out the sample. Cradling his fingers around it he held it out to Lee, saying, “Here’s one that’s air density.”

  The door opened and Arya came in looking… shattered. She walked over to Kaem.

  “What happened?” Kaem asked, concerned.

  “Martin Aero…” her eyes went to Lee. “Um… I think we should talk privately.” She started toward the door and waved Kaem and Gunnar after her.

  Kaem caught her elbow, “I think we need to ask Lee to wait outside.” He turned to Lee with an apologetic shrug, “Sorry, but we can’t leave you in here with our setup.”

  She said, “I understand,” gave the equipment a wistful look and started for the door.

  Kaem looked at Arya, “What’d they say?”

  Arya gave Kaem a searching look. “They say we’re infringing their patent for a method to form stade.”

  “What?!” Kaem asked, not believing his ears.

  Voice trembling, Arya asked, “Is stade really your invention, Kaem?”

  Feeling like he’d been punched in the gut, Kaem said, “Yes,” but the word barely qualified as a croak. How?! He would’ve sworn no one else could’ve come up with his idea. It was just too bizarre. When he’d first had it, he hadn’t expected the numbers to work.