The Petrovski Effect: A Tess Novel

by Randy Moffat

  He dropped the crescent that had done the raw work with a clank and grasped a torque wrench to tug on the bolts and insure that the necessary foot pounds of pressure were holding the nut on the bolt. Satisfied that the gauge read right on the this bolt Bear prepared to scoot to the next bolt in line using the mechanics trolley that was beginning to take on the outline of his butt.

  He felt a tug on a pant leg and changing his motion so that he rolled smoothly out from under the frame on the trolley using his heels. Lying on his back he blinked up at Wong’s double chin.

  Wong was half kneeling next to him grinning in his catlike enigmatic way.

  Intuitively Bear caught the meaning and the mood from the XO’s expression.

  “You have something important!” He said a statement not a question.

  Wong nodded.

  “Wanna see it?”

  “You bet! Anything is better than sweat equity.”

  Bear scrambled to his feet and looked up at the top of the towering rig where Rivera was pounding on something with a 5 pound sledge and cursing creatively.

  “Sergeant Rivera!” Her head dropped over the edge at the top.

  “Yeah . . . sir?” She asked laconically.

  “Gotta go . . . important stuff . . . you know . . . leadership stuff—I finished bolts 1, 2, 5 and 6. You will still need to torque test 3 and 4. OK?”

  “Roger, sir. Three and four it is.” Most of the boys insisted on calling him ‘Sir’ even though he no longer held an officer’s commission. Military discipline was not easily breakable even in the past tense. Besides he was still authorized to wear the uniform for the big parade on veterans’ day.

  Bear turned and walked with Wong back through the corridors, past spaces full of people working away on various projects. Bear noticed that they all looked a little haggard. Pinta and Petrovski in particular looked cadaverous and frayed around the edges rushing from place to place. All work and no play—Bear made a mental note.

  Wong almost dragged him into his office in his eagerness.

  “Two weeks ago you asked me to solve the really long term power problem.”

  “Yeah, and those three mondo trailer sized generators with their bosom pal a fuel tank the size of Mothra lend such an air of secrecy parked out there by the entrance. Those power cables snaking in the front door are really inconspicuous too. I stepped over one the other day and my testicles glowed like light bulbs from all the juice between my legs. No one glancing at that mess is likely to figure out something weird is going on in here with those 100 kilowatt beauties sitting and roaring away morning, noon and night. Even John QPublic has gotta know our lollipop factory here at Willie Wonka’s aren’t just running the chocolate waterfall.” He rolled his eyes in pure sticky sarcasm.

  Wong stuck his tongue out at Bear.

  “Please! Mordancy ill suits a great leader . . .” He caught a certain look on Bear’s face and hastened to add, “. . . especially . . . one with your remarkable good looks, Boss. Besides, that’s Willie Wanker’s! Not Wonka’s! Get the cover story straight at least! You know very well that those generators are short term anyway. I will move them inside . . . soon . . . someday . . . eventually—Craig and I have found an old truck entrance we can un-brick . . . but I gotta prioritize other things first. For the long term O’Hara and I have formed an idea of how to get Mohammed to his mountain over the long haul.”

  Bear dragged a chair up next to Wong’s seat at the keyboard and drooped in it while the XO dropped into his own chair.

  “O’Hara?” Bear asked as he sat—her name always got his attention one way or the other lately.

  “Yeah! She and I got to talking. I was bitching and moaning about how the hell was I going to get permission for a nuclear power plant when she said . . . ‘So how do they get permission to put them on submarines?’ It was like a light bulb went off in my head.”

  “Was it sort of a faint lamp in a sea of darkness?” Asked Bear curiously—giddy with caustic camaraderie. His muscles ached in places he had not known he had muscles and he noticed half his knuckles were scabbed over.

  “Like a candle in the desert night.” Wong agreed absently. He hit some keys on his keyboard and spun the screen so Bear could see.

  An image filled the viewing area.

  It was a submarine.

  “What the hell is that?” Bear asked.

  “Technically . . . it is called a submarine!” Wong said.

  Bear gave him a jaded look.

  He snorted and went on. “Specifically, she is the USS Phillip Sheridan. A ballistic missile sub . . . an SBM. She was laid down to be used as a ship of the line, but a funny thing happened during the acquisition process and she was never completed.”

  “What happened?”

  “Administration change . . . congressional districts were rewritten, a new president from a different party punishing the electorate of the area that voted for the loser, lots of pork barrel politics and assorted other political skullduggery. In any case, she was about 75 to 80% done when the money dried up. They never finished her.”

  “Fascinating! A lesson to us all in the limitations of representative democracy. Why am I looking at her?”

  Wong beamed at him.

  “The navy began decommissioning nuclear subs in the early 90’s as part of the cold war dividend. I think the USS Scamp was the first submarine to be dismantled as part of the U.S. Navy’s Submarine Recycling Program. The whole thing was a low profile plan that was intended to be a safe and effective process for disposing of decommissioned nuclear-powered subs in a green peace age. Only thing was, by that time there was a backlog and it takes a few years to do each weapon system so with some exceptions they started with some of the oldest subs and began work their way forward based on time of manufacture to the newest. Still have several to do on the list. This particular sub has not been touched since she was so new that she had only just been fueled and some initial tests run on the power pile when the building program for her was stopped. The boat never passed most of her sea trials but she is really clean as a whistle.” His eyes were bright when he looked at Bear. “She has been rotting away in a dry dock for decades while they dealt with lots of dirtier and riskier boats first.”

  Bear looked knowing.

  “In other words interagency bickering as to who underwrites the cost of decommissioning has kept them from handling it before now. Everyone wants to pay to get something. Nobody is a hero if they part with a mound of money to put something away in a closet as a mere safety concern. I’m guessing she is a football that’s been passed and fumbled between the contractors, the politicians and the Navy, rather than firmly in the Navy’s court.”

  “That too . . .” Wong agreed. “Of course their screw up is our gain. I am moving now to take procession. O’Hara and I think we can gain control with not much more effort than it took to get the cave here—though a nuclear sub is sufficiently high visibility to attract someone’s attention I used Feathergait’s AEC connections to make it look like Q-Kink is an official sub agency of the AEC safety commission. And who on earth will argue with making a nuclear reactor safer? In fact, so far everyone we have talked to seems really eager to get rid of a doppelgänger that is this big. Just like the bat cave she’s a white elephant worth just under 2 billion in 1990 something dollars. Imagine what that is these inflationary times? The controlling interests can’t wait to scrape her off their plates and into our wastebasket.”

  Bear thought for a minute then laughed out loud, slapping Wong on the shoulder.

  “The atomic power system in it is both functional and legal? You are a freaking genius Commander Wong! It would give us the power we need for the Petrovski effect to be fully tested! I bow in the presence of genius!”Bear dropped to his knees on the floor and knocked his head on the carpet in Wong’s direction.

 
Wong giggled.

  “Right . . . as long as we use it at sea and not in Kansas. Now there is one little thing you need to know. Most submarine atomic piles require seawater in some form or another to cool the reaction system and of course produce steam for the engines. If I read you right your ultimate aim it to take the thing into space. This hull will do admirably to test whatever the space drive team comes up with and the way Maureen and I see it, it may end up filling the final bill as a hyper-ship. In space there is no water around though so . . .”

  Bear was back in his seat. He blinked and held up a hand.

  “Excuse me . . . As a what?”

  “As a hyper-ship? That’s Maxmillian’s term for it anyway. I don’t really know what the hell it means, but he reads a lot of sci-fi so he is our resident expert on randomized techno terms. Anyway, we don’t need the old steam or diesel backup engines like in an ordinary submarine to drive a propeller shaft since those are for speed in water only. We can strip them and their transmissions out and buy back most of the engine spaces. I figure we can also tear out the missile tubes and torpedo equipment. We will keep the screw and use reactor power for the big paperclip accelerators to generate the Petrovski effect and coincidentally recharge her electric battery system that will run her drive shaft directly using compact electric motors for the short periods when she is at sea—my idea being that we launch her out in international waters. She’ll be miserably slow in water, but that is small potatoes to how unsure I am about what she’ll do in space. Water is still the key though. I figure we will ultimately still need water out in space to drive turbines to generate the electricity which will in turn charge the MacMoran engines . . . and to cool the reactor . . . and to make oxygen . . . and to drink . . . and . . . well . . . you get the idea. The real engineering hurdle will be how to carry enough water into the final design that will not freeze up on us in the cold of space.”

  ‘Excuse me!” Bear held up his palm again. “Run that tape back again. Drive the what?”

  The interruption threw him a moment and then Wong gave his now legendary giggle again at the look on Bear’s face.

  “Oh! The MacMoran engine? Hadn’t you heard that name either? Petrovski told us about how it was you who spotted the Alcubierre metric’s relation to the melting wall trick so someone . . . it might have been O’Hara, named it the MacMoran engine. It stuck.” He smiled. “Where was I? The space we save from engines and weapons crap I figure we can use to crowbar in the paperclip accelerators and plenty of other stuff too. We can also buy back much more living space and work spaces, but we will still have this water problem. We’ll use reactor coolant drinking, showering, and maybe hydroponics. We even may lose some water any time someone flushes a john, though we will recycle most of it. Anyway . . . we will need big water tanks on her . . . right now I am thinking we will mount them on the outer hull and I just wanted it in your mind that this process of artful redesign of the ship is going to take time.”

  Bear nodded thoughtfully.

  “Thanks! I have been wondering about coolant; that and external pressure. A sub is made to operate in an environment of great external pressure. The hull is constructed to get tighter as external ambient pressure increases. Essentially she gets stronger the deeper she goes. Subs traditionally add another atmosphere of pressure for every thirty three feet down they go. We are going the other way. What will be the effect of operating in space where there is less pressure than the 29.92 inches of mercury at sea level? I figure the hull will tend to leak air without the pressure crushing it.”

  “I talked about that with O’Hara. We will think of something. I have a lot of CAD work to do with Johnson if and when we get this tub. What I really wanted to talk to you about was the possibility of this being a good solution for the power requirement . . . if you approve, I will move ahead with the idea of getting our hands on her and her reactor. It won’t help us in the here and now, but in the long run . . .”

  “I not only think it’s a good idea . . . I love it! I love it because her reactor is perfect, and she’s a shape that’s built to carry a crew in the wrong environment for humans . . . she is pretty much perfect as a final hull for a spacecraft—made to trap atmosphere and house people. Her plant will provide the juice we need and be able to carry the entire environmental system into orbit. Of course, I do see that she’ll take a sometime to refit so we will need something else for the tests we need to run in the interim . . . something we can get going even quicker . . . but I really love the Sheridan as a long run solution. You two are my heroes. I have put you in for the man award . . . . you are officially . . . the man!” He grabbed Wong by his neck and rubbed his head with his knuckles and then released him with a hand shake. “The medal ceremony will follow once we can hear the citation being read over the roar of those freaking generators.”

  He left Wong. He was light on his feet, already ahead in the solution game but wondered about O’Hara’s ‘Sorta’ promise during their relay around the mattress. She came through a week later with virtually no notice when she suddenly appeared after an extended absence and clumped into his office on sensible shoes.

  O’Hara’s eyes twinkled which came across as playfully sexual. She was dressed in her best ‘do not touch me I am a power user’ business suit, but her eyes made it a lie. The contrast to the jeans and sweaty t-shirt she had worn the last month or so was highly enticing. Bear instantly wanted to reach in her business suit box for a doughnut . . . a hot one.

  “I want you to meet me in the desert tonight . . .” She began.

  Bear grinned

  “. . . With a million stars all around?” He finished the Eagle’s song line.

  She gave him the finger and stuck out her tongue and then turned the gesture on its head, sucked on the extended finger, licked her lips suggestively and bit her lower lip. It was hugely distracting.

  He had a sudden portent in his head—the idea swimming manfully against the torrent of blood moving in the opposite direction.

  “It isn’t Mojave is it?” He was still sharp despite his body trying to switch brains.

  She grinned.

  “XCOR and Spaceship X at Mojave Spaceport? Too obvious! Think, man!”

  He looked thoughtful to placate her. Mostly he was thinking about something else.

  “You are about as bad as Wong.” Bear said absently staring rather openly at her chest beneath the jacket. “Although your ‘bad’ is much nicer than Wong’s . . .”

  She rolled her eyes, reached over and slapped his arm—pleased.

  “How do you know? Are you sleeping with him too?” She giggled at the mental image. “Get dressed. You can ride with me to the airport. Mojave is the wrong dessert, think Saguaro cacti rather than Joshua Trees.”

  Later they rode together in one of the government service 4X4s Bear kept at the caves for errands. Bear’s mind was still on other things than driving and he kept trying to divert O’Hara’s from her task along the same lines using only his body—almost too successfully as it turned out.

  “Bear!” She cried out swerving the vehicle violently as his tongue tip touched her ear and his fingers touched her lightly elsewhere. “Stop it or we’ll both be dead.”

  Bear laughed from the sheer joy of living and sat back away from her, withdrawing his fingers like feathers from her upper thigh.

  “Alright already—I can take a hint.”

  “Not very well.” She said out of the side of her mouth.

  Bear laughed and patted her knee.

  “I’ll be good. Where’re we going again?”

  She smiled.

  “Tucson.”

  Bear looked thoughtful and then his face lit up.

  “I think I know what you are thinking, and if it’s what I think it is, I think I am gonna like it and I think that I like the way you think.”

  “You’re so
thoughtful.” Maureen said dryly.

  Bear laughed again.

  “Bet there is a motel in Tucson where we could stay.” He said thoughtfully again.

  She smiled at the thought.

  “We better check into it and take the head off that steam engine of yours quickly, before you kill us both.”

  They did not quite make it into Tucson before they turned the valve a bit, but both continued to vent steam after they got there for quite some time.

  The sun was brutal as it beat down on the row after row of aircraft They were walking between rows of B-52 bombers in a massive aircraft bone-yard.

  “Ours is a G model . . .” Maureen said. “. . . If we accept it of course. H models are the only ones still in active service so she is fairly current technology.”

  She stopped at the end of a row and compared the number on a piece of paper to the tail number. She smiled and for a moment Bear thought it put the desert sun to shame. She reached way up and patted the fuselage like an old friend.

  “This is her . . .” She said affectionately.

  “The idea is terrific, but why a B-52—why not some other kind of aircraft? There must be dozens.” He said to move his mind away from admiring parts of her to genuine interest in the information. Their time moving each other around a bed in a fairly usual way was still fresh in his mind. Nothing he felt about Maureen was usual to Bear though and the ardor she inspired left him still more excited by her proximity today. She was an unusual woman in every way.

  “Well, I got to thinking about the problem you were trying to solve which was something that could be used to test your MacMoran engines.”

  Bear eyes crinkled at the corners. He was growing to love working with her. She was so bright it hurt.

  “I never said that I wanted to test the engines.”

  She looked up at him.

  “No. You never actually said it.”