The Braintrust: A Harmony of Enemies

by Marc Stiegler

  Rhett looked at her quizzically. “A cognoscente, eh? What does that mean exactly?”

  “It means I have had the occasional thought that perhaps nuclear reactor technology—at least the technology reported in the media—could be improved upon.”

  “Indeed. Well, we can always use suggestions for improvements,” Rhett answered with good humor. You could tell from the amused expression as his gaze darted to Colin and back to Dash that he wasn’t sure whether to take her remark seriously or not. He turned to the other man, who still studied the display. “Lorenzo, we have company. Could you give…ah…Dash…a tour of the facility?” He looked sideways at her. “Not that there is much of anyplace to go on the tour, you understand. This room is the closest we get to the reactors themselves. Robots do all the heavy lifting.”

  “Of course,” Dash acknowledged primly. “Though you do have hatches into the pylons, don’t you? Are they large enough for people, or just for robots?”

  Rhett looked sternly at Colin. “I thought we were still trying to keep the reactors and their locations under wraps.”

  Colin held up his hands in surrender. “I didn’t tell her anything, Rhett. She figured it all out on her own.”

  “Hmph.”

  Dash stepped behind Lorenzo to look at a video display of the area around the core. “Clearly it’s in the pylon,” she said. “See how the outer wall wraps around in a circle?”

  “Hmph,” Rhett repeated.

  She looked more closely, jumped a bit, and clapped in delight. “And they are molten salt reactors, just as I’d hoped! Lithium fluoride?”

  Colin turned away to hide his laughter when Rhett gave him another long look. “Yeah, lithium fluoride.”

  Lorenzo was staring at her in appreciation. “How did you know?”

  Dash pointed to the center of the screen. “I presume that is the core, the thing that almost looks like an oversized pot with a partially open top?”

  Lorenzo nodded.

  “It is operating at normal atmospheric pressure, no high pressure or boiling water.” Dash looked over at Colin and Rhett. “Molten salt is the only sensible choice. You cannot afford a nuclear disaster, and molten salt—if done correctly—is inherently safe. Since the fuel is already liquid, it cannot melt down, and at standard atmospheric pressure there is little risk of an explosion. Particularly since the liquid expands if the liquid core overheats, creating a longer mean free path for the neutrons, reducing reactions, and cooling the liquid. You could have a complete power failure and a full containment breach and it still wouldn’t harm anything outside the pylon.”

  Colin could no longer control himself. He burst into outright laughter. “See? A cognoscente.”

  Dash continued as if Colin hadn’t spoken. “What do you use for fuel? I assume you are using a hybrid fuel that is partially comprised of spent nuclear fuel, since the Americans pay you to dispose of SNF.” She frowned. “Of course, the neutronics—you use zirconium hydride moderator rods, correct?—the neutronics are still unfavorable. You would have to add some HEU—High Enrichment Uranium, material from dismantled bombs—to offset it, correct? You put in as much HEU as you can before the plutonium starts coming out of solution, correct?”

  At this point Lorenzo and Rhett were just staring at her, mouths hanging slightly open.

  “I’ve dreamed of seeing such reactors,” Dash observed wistfully, unaware of the effect she was having on her audience. “How do you get the HEU? I would suppose you would get it from Hanford, but that is far behind the wall around the West Coast Waste. I did not think anyone could go in.”

  Rhett strode over to join her and Lorenzo at the display. “Ha! You’re wrong about that, at least.” He paused, and in fairness corrected himself. “Well, you’re half right. No one can get into Hanford, though Hanford itself would be perfectly safe to go into if the paranoid bureaucrats would just get out of the way. The missiles didn’t reach that far, and there was never really a radiation hazard. But we get our HEU from the North Waste. The survivors living in the Waste bring it south to Inchon, and it’s shipped from there.”

  “Of course,” Dash said thoughtfully. “That makes much more sense.”

  “Well,” Rhett said, “perhaps we should let you give us a tour of our facility.”

  Dash looked puzzled, then realized by looking at everyone’s faces that it was a joke. She covered her mouth with her hand as she laughed. “Actually, I was wondering if you could improve your neutronics by supplementing your flux with external solid state neutron generators. Have you seen the latest versions of such generators?” She tapped on her tablet and showed Rhett and Lorenzo a writeup. “With such augmentation, you could use a fuel mix richer in SNF, with less HEU or less fresh five percent LEU. Replacing all the LEU with SNF would mean you could get paid by the American Nuclear Waste Fund for every pound of fuel you use. You could give the power away and still turn a profit.”

  As Dash started drawing a diagram to show Lorenzo how to position a number of solid state neutron generators around the isle ship’s nuclear core, Rhett lifted his eyes and just stared at Colin.

  Colin looked back in bemused happiness. “And that is why I wanted her here,” he said simply. “I’ll have to tell Amanda about this one.”

  “What?” asked Dash distractedly. In the absence of a quick response, she returned to her work on the diagram.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A Family Matter

  Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.

  Alan Kay

  Jamal praised Allah once more under his breath. They’d been so close to her this entire time and still couldn’t find her. But that time had passed—they owned her now.

  Marjan had spotted her coming out of the police station, as he’d surmised, wearing the bright yellow shirt of a peacekeeper. At first he’d been worried that Jameela would spot them, but realized it was unlikely indeed. Who would expect a respectable Pakistani man to be here wearing these outrageous clothes?

  The promenade was too crowded for his liking in this final confrontation. A couple witnesses would be acceptable, even desirable given that the video cameras would record his vengeance anyway, unless he could force his way into her cabin. He’d briefly considered breaking into her cabin, but all the walls and doors in this place were solid steel; he couldn’t just batter his way in. He had to deal with her elsewhere. Ideally he’d deal with her now, but he’d wait until Jameela moved to someplace a little quieter than the promenade. Then he’d teach her respect.

  A young girl wearing glasses and a white lab coat met her with a hearty greeting by a restaurant. The two of them hugged; had Jameela turned to lesbianism? It didn’t seem at all farfetched to Jamal, though the other girl seemed a little young for that. Who was she? The only explanation he could come up with was that the girl was the daughter of one of the many doctors here on the Chiron, and she was wearing one of her father’s coats.

  In any event, the girl did not affect his calculations. She was hardly a threat.

  Jameela and the girl turned and strode to an elevator. No! He would lose them in the other twenty-five floors of the ship. Jamal rushed to the elevator with no clear plan. Should he kill her right there? No, Marjan was too far away to catch up in time to join him; the confrontation would have to wait.

  As Jameela turned to poke the button in the elevator he dodged to the side fast enough, he thought, so she could not see his face.

  And then his salvation came. Another woman, already on the elevator, asked Jameela where she wanted to go. And another voice—presumably the young girl’s—answered, “Appalachian Spring, please.”

  The other woman spoke. “Appalachian Spring it is. That’s a gorgeous deck, don’t you think?” The elevator door slid closed before he heard any response.

  Jamal waved Marjan to another elevator which was just opening, and up they went to Appalachian Spring.

  They arrived just in time to see a peacekeeper uniform and a white coat turn a corner. Jamal and Marjan ran to me
et their destiny.

  This was apparently a residential deck. Underneath the admittedly remarkable murals the cabins were dully, monotonously the same, one after the next. They passed a handful of people who watched them in surprise as they rushed by, probably startled to see tourists on this deck.

  Jameela and the other girl were laughing as Jamal and Marjan pulled even with them.

  Jamal was gasping for breath as he pulled out his chura. He’d been too excited about finding her, too afraid of losing her again, and now he was attacking her in a state of weakness. Just like the last time. Curse the bitch!

  Jameela heard him approach and turned. Her eyes widened as she recognized him, and he watched her eyes follow the knife as he raised it for the downstroke to her chest.

  She fell backward at his approach. He howled with glee, excited at seeing her fall before him—until her leg swept up, caught him in the stomach, and assisted him, retaining all his speed and momentum, in sailing down the passage. He crashed badly on the deck. Pain flared in his left shoulder, making him wonder if she’d managed to break something else the way she’d already broken his nose.

  He stumbled to his feet, expecting her to be on him before he could get his balance, but she had not pursued him. Instead, she had turned to her brother and proceeded to yell at him as if Jamal himself were unworthy of notice. The young girl in the white coat was sprawled to the side in a daze; presumably Marjan had taken care of her. This seemed particularly likely since Jameela was now stalking toward Marjan, shouting and pointing at the girl on the ground. It seemed momentarily odd to Jamal that she would be so focused on what had happened to the girl when her own death was imminent.

  Marjan swung at his sister, but she twisted just enough at the waist to avoid his fist. She kicked him in the knee and he screamed as he stepped back, almost falling when he put weight on the damaged leg.

  Enough. Jamal collected himself and rushed back into the fray, this time with his chura held forward like a sword. He yelled her name.

  Perhaps yelling had been a mistake. At the sound, Jameela glanced back at him, stepped aside, grabbed his knife arm, and pulled him past her.

  His knife cut into Marjan’s side before he could swerve.

  He should have known this would be more difficult than stoning a typical village girl. What had the Pakistani Army been thinking, giving this woman such training?

  Jamal bore to the right and swung around until he was on the opposite side of Jameela from Marjan. He howled in rage again, but this time it was part of his strategy.

  Jameela turned to face him. This gave Marjan an opportunity to jump forward on his good leg and grab her from behind in a bear hug. Jameela struggled, but her brother was much bigger and stronger. She writhed and swung her head back; the resulting crack told Jamal that Marjan’s nose was now broken just like his own. But Marjan was obdurate as an ox when it came to rough and tumble. He held on.

  Jamal breathed heavily and approached her with satisfaction.

  ***

  Dash was livid. She felt irritatingly helpless; the bigger of the two thugs had batted her out of the way with an easy swat. She was not one to be discarded so casually.

  What could she do? She wished desperately she had her doctor’s bag with its very fine scalpel. If she had her scalpel she could show these barbarians some knife work. Alas, she’d left the bag in her lab.

  She didn’t have any tools to work with…except the pen Dr. Williams had given her during the defense of her experimental plan.

  The bigger thug had wrapped his arms around Jam, trapping her for the other one. Could Dash take out the one with the knife? Probably not, but she didn’t have to. She was sure Jam, even unarmed, was a better weapon than any knife. She limped swiftly but silently up behind the one holding Jam, jumped on his back, and plunged the tip of her pen into his ear.

  ***

  Jamal was savoring the moment as he approached his helpless wife. She had stopped struggling, as if resigned to her fate. Though, oddly, there was no evidence of resignation in her eyes. Indeed, she had more of a look of…readiness. Worried, he decided he’d lingered long enough and charged. He thrust his knife forward once more to take her in the chest.

  Except at that moment Marjan screamed and twisted. His twist threw off both the aim of Jamal’s knife toward Jameela’s heart, and Jameela’s fierce kick that would have snapped his neck. The knife barely sliced her arm near the shoulder, and the kick missed.

  Seconds later Marjan released Jameela. Marjan was still screaming at the top of his lungs. Puzzlingly, he seemed to be wearing the white lab coat. It took Jamal a moment of analysis as Marjan swung this way and that to realize that the young girl had wrapped her legs around his waist. While holding onto him like a rodeo rider on a bronco, she was carefully twisting a black stick buried in the side of his head.

  Jamal turned back to Jameela, who had apparently paused a moment to take in the scene as Marjan hopped about. Blood was dripping from her arm in a satisfying way, but the dark rage in her face did not suggest she was incapacitated by it. Rather, it was as if she hadn’t yet noticed.

  She stalked toward him. He jabbed at her with his knife, but she chopped his wrist and the chura fell from his numbed hand. Then she swung at his face.

  Not his nose again! He shifted and her fist connected. He felt the pop more than heard it as his jaw broke. He backed away, blinded by pain, holding his hands up to protect himself from another attack as he had done on their last night together.

  Jameela leaned over and picked up his chura, then walked over to the young girl now sprawled on the ground for a second time. Jameela spoke with her briefly, then turned to Marjan. He was jerking up and down, holding his ear. Jameela smacked him twice in rapid succession to get his attention. She shouted, and he sat down.

  Jamal thought it was over, but she glided back to him once more, kicked his legs out from under him, and threw him on his back. She kicked him between the legs. The pain was so great he could not even scream.

  She stood over him, hands on her hips. “Divorce me,” she demanded.

  He stared at her.

  She kicked him again. “Divorce me, or I will kick your favorite parts up into your throat.”

  The girl in the white coat, who was approaching them, cleared her throat. “Technically that is not possible. It is a different system of plumbing.”

  “I’ll manage,” Jameela assured her, as she pulled her leg back to encourage him once more.

  Jamal opened his mouth to speak. The motion made him jerk, and he would have screamed at the pain from his jaw except that screaming made the pain worse. He leaned forward, pointing at his face, hoping she would wait while he figured out how to make his mouth work. “I divorce you three times,” he rasped. Just to make sure she heard, he said it again. “I divorce you three times. I divorce you three times.”

  Jameela relaxed into a standing position, no longer threatening him. “Thank you,” she said politely. Then she knelt slowly over him, bringing the knife down to his throat. Into his ear she whispered. “If you ever come here again, or send someone else, I shall hunt you. I shall have Dr. Dash here, who is a surgeon, teach me how to castrate pigs. And then, in this as in so much else, you shall be my first. Understood?”

  He nodded as vigorously as he could without cutting himself on his own weapon.

  Jameela rose so fast, so gracefully, that he couldn’t even follow her movement. “What a beautiful day!” she exclaimed.

  Then people with yellow shirts started arriving at a run from many directions.

  He was going to be doing a lot of explaining to the elders.

  ***

  Dash still felt like a limp rag as she entered the cafeteria for lunch the next day. Her part in the fight with Jam’s ex-husband and Jam’s own brother had left her on an adrenalin high that she had enjoyed in a way that still disturbed her. Everyone came to her room and sat on the bed or the sofa listening to her repeat the story of the fight as seen from her
perspective. Jam listened quietly, Ping listened eagerly, and Byron listened in horror. Even Colin stopped in for a while, and she had to tell the story once more. When he had left, Dash excused herself from her own party and went to her lab to get some work done while she was still riding the high.

  But after the adrenalin came the crash. She’d slept till nearly noon, a flagrant violation of her work ethic. All she wanted to do now was go back to bed, but she squared her shoulders and carried on. She was made of sterner stuff than that. Besides, the mediation for the assault was scheduled for this afternoon. She really needed to eat something beforehand.

  After filling her tray with salad and Cajun-style blackened kahala, Dash paused as she looked at her usual table. Byron was already there, arguing with Colin. As she approached, Colin responded. “Yes, we ship anyone who doesn’t have a job back where they came from, and that’s why there’s no poverty here. The BrainTrust is not trying to solve all of the world’s problems, Byron.

  “We set out to solve one very important problem. We solved it extremely well, I think, and solved an additional number of important problems along the way. But we did not set out to erase all the problems of mankind. Do not expect us to. Many problems remain to be solved by other mobile islands that will take off on new paths in the future, finding new solutions.”

  Byron snapped, “What problems have you solved other than how to help a lot of really smart people who would have done well anyway get even richer than they would have otherwise gotten?”

  Colin snorted. “Well, we solved the healthcare problem, for one.”

  “What are you talking about? We already solved the healthcare problem in the Blue states. We have universal health coverage. You don’t even have that!”