by Bob Blanton
“What about the heavy hydrocarbons, the greases, and tars?” Dr. McGenty asked.
“The plasma field will be hot, they’ll all burn up or separate and release the carbon,” Dr. Zelbar said. “We just have to capture it all in the polysteel matrix.”
“A very virtuous cycle,” Dr. McGenty said. “What about power?”
“We plan to contain the plasma field in such a way that we can extract all the heat and turn it into energy to feed back into the process,” Nikola said. “The plasma field is mostly self-sustaining, the heat being extracted and fed back into the system.”
“That’s nice. What about the rest of the power for the production?” Dr. McGenty said.
“We’re planning on solar,” Marc said. “All the roofs will have solar panels on them.”
“The exotic material for the batteries and fuel cell elements?” Dr. McGenty asked.
“We’ll use recycled lithium batteries when they’re available,” Nikola said. “I think the process we have in mind will lend itself to recycled batteries. I’m hoping Dr. Scheele will be able to prove that out now that he’s here.”
“I’m intrigued,” Dr. Scheele said. “I read that you’re forming a lithium ceramic.”
“That’s correct. The batteries will have a much higher power density per gram of lithium, and the additional elements of the ceramic are quite benign.”
“And the fuel cells?”
“That is probably our most complex environmental problem,” Nikola said. “We will need to find a way to economically and environmentally recharge the fuel cells once they’re spent. We don’t want them to wind up in some dump or salvage yard.”
“It looks like my work here is done,” Marc said. “I’ll leave you all to it. Ah, and here are the refreshments. The room is yours for the next few days. Tomi has been around for a while, so he’ll know how to get anything you need, or contact my admin, Masina, and she’ll help out.”
Chapter 19
Board Meeting – Jan 7th
“Let’s get this meeting going,” Blake said. “Some of us have places to be.”
“You do?” Marc asked. “And just where have you three been going every evening for the last month?” They were sitting in the sundeck lounge of the Mea Huli while she was running on autopilot thirty miles southeast of Manuae.
“As if you don’t know,” Blake said.
“I don’t. I’ve instructed ADI only to inform me of Catie’s whereabouts when I ask, or if she’s in danger. Now that she’s thirteen, I have to give her some space.” Marc laughed at his joke, but Catie beamed at the implied freedom.
“We’ve been going to the Sakira to practice on the Foxes,” Catie said.
“So, how’s the training going?” Marc asked.
“Pretty good,” Blake said. “Liz, with her experience as a chopper pilot, has picked it up fast. Catie’s been doing the sims for months and makes us all look bad. It’s not that different from an F18 in general handling, so I’m doing just fine.”
“When can we take them up?” Catie asked.
“I think we want to wait on that,” Marc said.
Catie showed her disappointment with a pout.
“We should probably get some air time,” Blake said. “As of now, Catie is the only one who’s actually flown one.”
“Don’t remind me,” Marc said. He was thinking back to the mad dash they’d made from the Chagas to the Mea Huli when Catie had had to take the Lynx airborne and supersonic to make it in time.
“Come on,” Catie whined, “I did good.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Now the meeting?” Blake said.
“Okay,” Marc said. “Catie, why don’t you go get Fred and Sam.”
“Okay,” Catie said as she ran down the ladder to the main deck. Shortly after, she returned, followed by Fred and Samantha.
“Sam, do you have something to share with the board?” Marc asked.
“Yes, I do. We have a signed contract with the Cook Island government covering the right to use the island of Manuae for the next fifty years. It appoints Marc as mayor until the local population exceeds fifteen thousand, and there is a referendum asking for an election. It gives us a very favorable tax position; we’ll pay twelve percent tax on the gross sales, no property tax since we’re doing all the development, and allows the construction of Delphi City, which will be considered part of Manuae. We’re allowed to put in a two hundred fifty square meter manufacturing facility, and dorms for workers to live onsite. We can improve the landing strip to handle larger craft like the G650. It requires that we maintain a neutral impact on the environment and restore the land to pristine condition at the end of the term.”
“Perfect,” Marc said. “Sam, thanks for all your efforts on this. I know it’s been a difficult period dealing with bureaucrats all this time.”
As expected, Blake got up and poured everyone a glass of Glenlivet and a splash for Catie so they could toast the deal and the new mayor.
“To our mayor!” Blake toasted.
“To our mayor!”
“Thanks, everybody, I’ll try not to mess up too bad. Kal, how are we doing on security?” Marc asked, trying to get the meeting back on track.
“I’ve got eight guys here now, and six more coming next week. Liz rustled up four from her old crew,” Kal said. “That should get us started. We’ll begin training the new guys once everyone clears medical.” Kal gave Marc a knowing look, sending the message that he was ready to get his new legs.
“Liz, anything to add?”
“We need to work through what we want to do about weapons, but Kal and I are on top of it.”
“How is our flight simulator coming along?”
“It’s up and running,” Fred said. “Catie’s really putting it through its paces on both the Lynx setting and the G650 setting. I’ve done a few hours on the Lynx setting. Those are some amazing jets.”
“Catie, how are you doing with our aircraft design team?” Marc asked.
“They decided on using the turbofan design,” Catie said as she straightened up in her chair. “I’ve reviewed it with Uncle Blake, and he agrees that starting with the Rolls-Royce F136 as a base of the design is the best starting place. We can have them modify the engine to our spec; we’ll send them the critical parts that only we can manufacture. It will save us over the custom job we did for our prototype. And it saves having to develop all the manufacturing tooling on our own. If everyone is okay with it, I’ll have Sam open negotiations.”
“That sounds good,” Marc said. “What about the cockpit?”
“Same thing,” Catie said. “We buy the basic package from a subcontractor, with a few black boxes specified where we’ll plug our unique components in. We’ll add our components here when we put it all in the Lynx. The team feels we can be ready to put the parts into a real shell within three months.”
“So, we’ll be flying when?” Marc asked with a smile.
“When are you going to give me a shell?” Catie asked.
Marc looked at Blake. “We’re two weeks from starting up the polysteel, but I have no clue how long it will take to dial the process in,” he looked at Liz.
“I’m getting two weeks from Dr. Zelbar,” Liz said. “But you’re right, we won’t know until they start.”
“When we have the process dialed in, we need to start beam construction for the offshore plant since that’s critical path. Give it two months to seed the work, then we can start on a shell.”
“Why can’t we do it in parallel?” Catie asked.
“We don’t want to debug the same process twice,” Blake said. “Once we have beam works working, we can set up the second process for sheet and forms.”
“But why can’t we start that when you’re ramping up the beams?” Catie asked.
“Good question,” Marc said.
Blake gave a big sigh, “I’ll look into it. We’ll put in some more manufacturing space to shift the battery and fuel cell production too.”<
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“That’s going to be a problem,” Samantha said. “The government really doesn’t want that big a footprint on Manuae.”
“Can we go vertical?” Marc asked, winning him a big smile from Catie and a frown from Blake.
“We could if it’s not too tall,” Samantha said.
“We could probably do that and only add four meters in that section of the building,” Blake said reluctantly. “I’ll check it out with our construction team.”
“You sound pretty busy. Why don’t we ask Fred to start managing the production schedule?”
“I’d be happy to,” Fred said.
“Good by me,” Blake said. “You can try to keep Ms. Catie happy.”
Catie rubbed her nose with a particular finger, and Blake burst out laughing.
“Blake, work with Samantha on the second story; make sure she has what she needs when she goes to the government for approval,” Marc said. “We don’t want to invest too much before we know if they’ll let us go forward.”
“How are we doing on battery customers?” Marc asked.
“Tesla will use up all of our capacity for a while,” Catie said. “We don’t want to stir up new customers until we have more capacity. Tesla is asking for more than we can produce as of now. Is Fred picking up the battery production schedule as well?”
“Send me the details,” Fred said after getting a nod from Marc.
Chapter 20
The New Mayor
The Prime Minister of the Cook Islands insisted on having a public gala to celebrate the signing of the agreement. Since Marc was the appointed Mayor of Manuae and the CEO of MacKenzie Discoveries, he was the guest of honor. In typical Cook Island tradition, the event was formal Polynesian. That meant slacks and tropical shirts for men, and long tropical dresses for women.
“I want to wear my jewelry from my grans,” Catie said. She and Liz were comparing notes about what to wear for the event.
“The turquoise ones?”
“Yes. What color goes with turquoise, and what do you wear to a Polynesian gala?”
“White or Black is the best color with turquoise,” Liz said. “But you can get away with just about anything.”
“What about what to wear?”
“Below the knee is the only guidance I could get out of Masina. Other than that, she seemed to indicate that anything went. The men are just supposed to wear slacks and a nice tropical shirt.”
“Well, I don’t have anything that goes below the knee,” Catie said. “I think we have to go shopping.”
Liz laughed, “How many dresses did you bring back from Boston?”
“Lots, but none of them are Polynesian style. My grandparents and grans think you should wear something out of Vogue.”
“Well, let’s go shopping.”
◆ ◆ ◆
They went to Nani’s Island Wear, which was highly recommended by Masina. The shop was a tropical garden of colors. Bright kaftans hung over all the walls, and there were racks of them on both sides of the store where they entered.
“Wow, look at all these colors,” Catie said.
“They do have a wide selection,” Liz said as she was flipping through the rack of kaftans. “I’m going to pick up a couple of these while we’re here. You should get a couple too.”
“Why?”
“Well, when someone comes over, you can throw it over the shorts and T-shirt you prefer to wear around the house. Then you’ll be dressed for company and not embarrass your father.”
“Oh, whatever,” Catie sighed, but she started looking at the kaftans along with Liz.
“May I help you?” the young clerk asked.
“Yes,” Liz said. “We’re looking for a couple of outfits to go to the gala on Saturday.”
“You are so lucky. I wish I could go. It is supposed to be a big party.”
“That’s what we hear,” Liz said. “Catie here wants to wear some turquoise jewelry, so she needs a dress that will go with the color. I’m just looking for something nice.”
“Ah, turquoise, that is such a pretty color for you,” the clerk said. “I would recommend white; it will go well with the turquoise and will be properly fashionable for a party with our prime minister.”
“I don’t want to look like a bride,” Catie whined.
“Oh no, it won’t be all white. It will have a nice swath of tropical flowers in the design. Here let me show you.”
After looking at over a dozen dresses, Catie finally settled on a white sleeveless maxi dress with spaghetti straps. It had a wine-red palm border print that came up to just below the hips. Liz chose a one-shoulder cobalt blue dress with a flowered skirt and solid blue bodice.
“Aren’t we going to be the bells of the ball,” Liz said as she and Catie posed in front of the mirror.
“Are you bringing a date?” Catie asked.
“No,” Liz said. “I’ve sworn off men for a while.”
“Oh,” Catie said, remembering the nightmare. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m warming up to the idea again. Hanging out with your uncle and your dad is helping. They’re always such gentlemen.”
“Even Uncle Blake?” Catie said with surprise.
Liz laughed, “Sure, he’s always making some joke or something, but he never invades my space, and he’s always respectful. If you listened to his end of the conversation, you wouldn’t know if he was talking to Kal or me.”
Catie thought for a moment. “I guess that’s right, I’ve always thought it was just normal.”
“Unfortunately, not,” Liz said. “Men seem to have this compulsion to treat women differently, and it’s not always about being nicer.”
“I’ve never seen my dad treat a woman different than he would a man, except when he’s on a date,” Catie said. “You know Dr. Metra can help you if you want?”
“How, is she a psychiatrist?”
“No, but she told me how her people treat PTSD,” Catie said. “They kind of erase or dull the memory of the triggers.”
“Erase the memory?”
“Only if you want her to. Otherwise, she just dulls it. That way, it’s still there, but it doesn’t sneak up on you. It makes it like something you have to want to recall, instead of having it triggered all the time by things that happen every day. Like loud noises triggering a memory of being shot.”
“I’ll think about it,” Liz said. “I’m not sure I want Dr. Metra messing with my head.”
◆ ◆ ◆
The prime minister went to the stage and stood at the microphone. “I would like to say meitaki maata to all the people of MacKenzie Discoveries. You are a wonderful addition to our islands. For those of you who don’t know yet, Dr. McCormack and his company have agreed to invest one billion dollars here in the Cook Islands, setting up manufacturing facilities that will provide employment for many of our friends and relatives. And best of all, they’ve agreed to do this in such a way that it does not damage the ecosystem of our beautiful home. They will be making this investment over the next ten years, so all of our children will have a choice to stay here in the islands instead of having to go somewhere else to find high-paying jobs.”
The prime minister paused while the crowd applauded. “Along with the additional tax revenues, the jobs and the business it will generate, MacKenzie Discoveries will be injecting an additional fifty million directly into the coffers of the government. This will help the government provide better healthcare in our outer islands. No longer will our families have to come to Rarotonga or fly to New Zealand to get basic health care. We will be able to improve our infrastructure with a more predictable source of income. Tourism has been good to us, but it is too variable for long-term planning, and it doesn’t create the higher-paying jobs we would want our children to have.” Again, there was a round of applause.
“Now I know that all of you would like to get back to the party. The Akirata dance group is coming out shortly, but we wanted to have everyone meet Dr. McCormack and see him appointe
d Mayor of Manuae.”
She signaled for Marc to come forward. After Marc accepted the appointment as Mayor of Manuae, much to his chagrin, he had to give a speech.
“Kia orana,” Marc said. “My friends and I have been enjoying the hospitality of your islands. We’ve been treated well by everyone we have met, and we hope that we are treating the people we meet as well as they have treated us. We are excited to start our venture down here. We want to assure you that we want to be good neighbors and friends. We will be conducting our business in ways that enhance the islands’ culture and community. Please feel free to come by and offer help and suggestions on how we can be better members of your community. Our door will always be open. Now in keeping with the island traditions, I think we should all return to the party.”
Marc left the stage and came over to Catie and Samantha. “I can see you like giving speeches down here,” Samantha said.
“Yes, low expectations,” Marc said. “And lots of distractions. Now, as I was saying, we should get back to the party. We don’t want to miss the dancers.”
Chapter 21
Missing them
“Uncle Blake and Kal are going to be gone for a week,” Catie whined. “Should I go with them to keep them company?”
“I’m sure you’ll be down there with Liz on the flight simulator often enough,” Marc said.
“Liz can’t do it. Only one of them can be off station at a time,” Catie said. “But I’ll go anyway.”
Marc grimaced, “That’s right. I forgot, but I think that will be good. Talk to Blake. I don’t want to have too big a gap in our presence. The two of them being gone will be enough, especially with Kal just coming back from a ten-day recruiting trip.”
“Does it really have to be a whole week?” Catie whined some more. “Can’t they bring them up to the hospital ship sooner?”
“No,” Marc sighed. “Dr. Metra says it will be another month before the Virginia Henderson will be ready. And she was?”