Jim Baen's Universe

Introducing: Stories by new authors

Technical Exchange

Written by Kevin Haw

Illustrated by David Maier

Score: 100.0

I'm ashamed to admit it, but the only reason I went to the kickoff meeting where I met my best friend and business partner was to score a free coffee mug. I wasn't expecting any Exiles to be there.

Now, normally I avoid corporate pep rallies, even when there's free loot to be had, but that time I had an ulterior motive. You see, you can tell how committed an aerospace company is to a project by the quality of the swag it gives the peons. So, while the business section obsessed about the outlook for international tourism and the UN's recognition of the Exiles, I simply clutched the stainless steel mug with the etched 7z7 logo surrounding an Exile shuttlecraft and saw two years of private school tuition for my daughters.

That was also where they debuted the ad. You know the one. "Around the world or around the stars, the Otherliner™ takes you there!" The animated plane taking off from Beijing, kids in a Midwest playground waving up at happy passengers. A media campaign for a piece of hardware that hadn't even been designed yet, let alone manufactured or flown.

You'd think we would've seen it as an omen.

"Thank you," Thermal cooed when the lights came up, assuming the applause was for him. His thumb absently scratched his scalp, a gesture universal to owners of poorly fitted hairpieces. "I'm glad everyone's as excited about this project as I am. Today marks a new chapter in our company's—no—in our planet's history. Now normally, I'd field questions myself . . ."

The auditorium filled with subvocal groans.

". . . but since this is a joint venture, we'll let our partner handle that. Allow me to introduce Chairman Smith, of the Exile Habitat Engineering and Maintenance Company."

Now that perked everyone up. Even I stopped recalculating my hourly contract rate and started paying attention. The Exiles might have been all over the media for the better part of a year, but none of us had ever seen one in the flesh.

The Chairman sidled up to the podium, switching from four footed stance to two-and-tail. At first glance, he looked exactly like the videos. Take a cave newt, one of the eyeless albinos from the documentaries with the narrator in a mining helmet, dye it slate gray and stretch it to eight feet long. Then stick a second pair of limbs just below the ribcage. For the head, put a porpoise's acoustic melon on top of the long, sinewy neck and a tentacled snout underneath, a sea anemone the size of a beer can. Add a three piece suit (shirt, pants, midlett–one garment for each pair of limbs) out of something that looks like navy blue wool.

"Thank you so much for those kind words," the translator strapped to the Chairman's chest said, converting his ultrasonic chirps to a bass monotone. "Before answering your questions, I would like to read a statement from my company to yours . . ."

As he droned, you could sense the entire auditorium lose focus. It appeared that the oratorical habits of middle managers crossed species.

"Ford," Marco whispered, elbowing my side. "He's wearing a rug, just like Thermal!"

I peered closer, realized the kid was right. Male Exiles have this small ruffle of down around the neck, perhaps as wide as a man's palm. In the Chairman's case, though, it appeared flamboyantly large and spanned several unlikely shades along its width.

"Maybe it doesn't look so bad on sonar." I shrugged. A lame joke, since Exiles actually see with a tiny eyespot just above the snout. But I got a snicker from my intern nevertheless.

"Are there any questions?" asked the Chairman when he'd finished reading his lines. Predictably, the audience was silent.

"Ask him," Marco whispered, nudging me, "what you said at lunch."

"No," I hissed back.

"C'mon. Chicken?"

"Me? You're the one who won't come out to the Soaring Club . . ."

"Ah," said the Chairman, swiveling his head towards me. "We have a question."

Damn. Too loud, I'd been caught like a rat in a trap. My embarrassment turned to irritation when I saw the two staff photographers covering the event nudge each other and begin to click away at me. I mean, I know the company's nuts for the whole "diversity" thing, but did they have to put an African American on the cover of the Employee Newsletter every time one stood up and asked a question?

"Well," I began, burying my annoyance. "I really have more of a concern than a question, Mr. Chairman. Er, Ford Gregory, Structures Group."

"Yes?" Perhaps it was just nervousness from talking to a bona fide extraterrestrial, but I swear I felt a beam of ultrasonic sonar boring into me. Several beams, in fact, when I saw about a half dozen Exiles seated in the front row turn their serpentine necks and look at me. An absurd notion, but no less so than feeling human eyes staring.

"Er, yeah. I'm just concerned about the risks of using Exile technology in our airplane."

"You mean safety? Because I can assure . . ."

"No, not that. Schedule and cost risk. For example, that video mentioned new technology that serves as the skin for your generation ship."

"Well, it's hardly a new technology," the Chairman replied. "Skin has protected our ship for centuries and its history goes back even farther. Very mature technology."

"A mature technology for keeping atmosphere separated from deep vacuum, perhaps," I said. "No one, though, not you, not us, has ever wrapped an aircraft with the stuff before. I just have doubts that something a hundred times lighter than the traditional materials can do the job."

"I understand your concerns," the Chairman said, "but the shearing stress of a micrometeor impact compared to anything an atmospheric craft might face . . ."

"It's not just about shear. There's other . . ."

"Thank you, Ford," Thermal interrupted. "But if we get into a debate here, we'll miss the refreshments at the back of the auditorium."

There was a chuckle from the crowd, followed by several hands going up. "Anyone else? Ah, Marilee! What questions does Systems Engineering have?"

In retrospect I couldn't blame Thermal for cutting off a debate that would have bored the rest of the auditorium to tears. Occupational hazard. Engineers argue the way fish swim.

Sure enough, though, the other questions were lightweight: How many Exiles were in the generation ship? (Four million) What did they think of Seattle? (Lovely, especially in the springtime) What was the most interesting thing they'd seen on Earth? (A tie between Mount Rushmore and Hollywood) How many planned to emigrate? (Very few. Most would stay in orbit and occasionally play tourist) Basically, a rehash of everything you could have gotten off the web.

The refreshments were good, though. After more speeches, Marco and I were critiquing the cookie tray when a voice surprised me from behind.

"I told the Chairman not to use those numbers."

"What?" I replied, concealing the stack of baked goods I'd been pocketing.

It was an Exile, a male from the front row. Unlike the Chairman, this fellow had a neatly trimmed crest of modest, although still healthy, dimensions. At first glance, it appeared all natural, too. Score one for those of us with receding hairlines who are still secure in our masculinity.

He stood about five feet in the two-and-tail posture, slightly shorter than the Chairman. Close up, I could see that the fine down that served the Exiles in lieu of fur wasn't solid gray, but was shaded in places. His midlett and trousers seemed slightly threadbare with a different cut than the Chairman's. The ancient suit I wear for job interviews and funerals suddenly leapt to mind.

"I told him not to use the one percent figure," the Exile continued, oblivious to my forced nonchalance and Marco's open gawking. "Valid for our application on the generation ship, but not yours. Ten times lighter, not a hundred, is more realistic."

"Really? I would have thought . . ." I paused, extended my hand. "My apologies, I'm Ford Gregory."

"Yes. 'Structures Group,' right? That would make you a materials engineer, too. Call me Thomas Patch."

There were handshakes all around when he extended the three fingered hand of one of his stubby midlimbs. His grip was firm through his glove/tabi sock garment, but in the back of my mind I remembered the old George Carlin bit about shaking hands with a guy missing some fingers.

"A materials engineer. So, um, what specifically do you do, Thomas?"

"Oh, I'm the chief engineer for the group that maintains the Skin enclosing our habitat."

"Er, ah, the skin that I said, er . . ."

Grace under pressure. Yup. That's me.

Thankfully, Thomas made a dismissive gesture, probably picked up in a briefing on human body language.

"Don't be embarrassed. You said nothing I wouldn't have if I didn't know the properties of Skin. I'd be skeptical, myself."

"Well," I said, "it sounds like a fascinating technology."

"Really? To us it's five centuries old, hardly glamorous. A career dead end, my parents warned me. Still, it's offered plenty of challenge over the years. In fact, we've improved Skin in a dozen ways during our journey. I doubt the inventors on Homebound would even recognize it."

"Well, I only wish I could learn more. But we're using carbon fiber for the 7z7 airframe."

"A good, conservative choice," Thomas agreed, nodding his faceless head. It must've been a very thorough briefing.

"Hey." Marco's unease was apparently abating. "Why will our Skin be ten times heavier than yours?"

"Photoelectric effect. Skin needs an electrical field to operate. Our version converts light from our Habitat's sun for power. Your version will need to include a power distribution network. Unless, of course, you always fly the planes westwards so they face the sun."

Wow. A giant newt telling a joke. Not a funny one, but still . . .

"Photoelectric? This stuff generates power like a solar cell? That's incredible!"

"Yes, it is." Thomas' translator injected a note of glee in his voice. "Skin really is beautiful stuff."

****

That should have ended it with Marco and me going back to our little cubicle to work with "good, conservative" carbon composites for the next three years. Instead, a voicemail from Thermal's assistant summoned me to his office to discuss the comments I'd made. On the way down the corridor, I dusted off my list of headhunters and contemplated a new job search.

When I entered Thermal's rosewood and brass lair, though, I was surprised by the absence of a security guard or Human Resources rep, the usual pallbearers at a firing. Instead of canning me, Thermal sat me down and turned on the charm. He said he liked that I "thought outside the box." I considered reminding him I'd actually been advocating thinking inside the Box, but I kept silent.

Then he blindsided me by offering a new job: leading the team that would work with Thomas to adapt Skin to the 7z7. I must've mumbled something vaguely affirmative because he leapt up and shook my hand.

I recovered from my daze long enough to seize on the ritual "If there's anything you need, just ask." It seemed only fair that Marco joined me. When I got back and told him we'd be working with new technology, that the fate of the project and perhaps the company would be resting on our shoulders, he thought it was a compliment.

I couldn't stop laughing for twenty minutes.

****

Score: 10.0

It turned out Thomas was absolutely right about Skin. It's beautiful stuff, a material scientist's wet dream. He hadn't even begun to scratch the surface, though.

The Exile generation ship is a study in layers, a rigid, ring shaped space station spinning around an artificial sun. All this is inside a balloon of Skin 200 Km in diameter. The partially pressurized region outside the ring is used for recreation and zero gee agriculture, but also serves as a convenient buffer zone against junk that might collide with the craft.

Don't ask me about how they make the Reference Drive move the damn thing, sun and all. I never understood that loophole in Einstein's theories.

Skin is a nanotube mat, grown in vats rather than manufactured. Only 120 microns thick but with a tensile strength several hundred times greater than anything humanity ever developed. Embedded intelligent nodes dynamically change Skin's elasticity to deform in response to strain within milliseconds, a neural net with enough spare computing power to be a leasable commodity.

If there's stress on the Skin envelope, either from a micrometeor impact outside or an atmospheric gust inside, the strain is distributed over dozens of square kilometers. If there's a breach, Skin won't tear. Instead, it puckers until a repair crew responds to an automatic alarm.

This takes a lot of energy, hence the photoelectric properties Thomas mentioned. During most of the Exiles' three century journey, their artificial sun provided the power. With the habitat in Earth orbit, however, the light from Sol bathing the exterior generates several orders of magnitude more power than the Exiles need.

Which leads us back to the business section again.

The economists and pundits in the press speculated this was the real reason the Exiles had agreed to the 7z7 partnership. They'd announced a long term power project, beaming energy down to Earth. The 7z7 agreements would raise enough capital to build the dirtside receiver stations without human investors or partners, giving them an end to end power monopoly.

The fate of a company might have hinged on humans like Marco and me, but economic independence for all the Exiles rested on Thomas's and his cohorts' shoulders.

Figuratively, of course, because, you know . . . Four arms. No shoulders.

This (less the economic and anatomical speculation) was the essence of the lecture Thomas gave two weeks after my promotion. Thomas and his assistant, a female named Marjorie Currie (yes, that Currie. This was before she went into Exile politics, though), led the meeting.

On the human side, the room was packed. There were only three permanent team members: myself, Marco, and Eleanor Compton, an underappreciated genius I'd poached from the landing gear group. During the eighteen month schedule, though, we'd be loaned aeronautical engineers, power distribution gurus, and other specialists for specific technical milestones. Forty people over the course of the entire program. At "Skin 101" they all showed up.

That's what happens when you spring for donuts.

"You can change the color, though, right?" asked Finn Radke, one of the aeronautic engineers, gesturing to a jar Thomas had passed around containing a sample of Skin. A ribbon of gossamer black as wide as an elastic bandage floated in clear fluid, ends spliced in a moebius strip. It threaded through the eyes of two sewing needles before flaring out again to full width. Thomas had programmed it to "swim", edges rippling as it zipped through the fluid, a hyperactive eel devouring its own tail. A watch battery attached to the needles provided power.

"I mean," Finn continued, "it isn't all black, right?"

Thomas nodded. "When we grow Skin, we can introduce impurities to change specific properties. There are three thousand known variants. We'll grow Skin with the livery of each airline already imprinted."

"So you can't paint it in the field?" That was Jay Tsai, one of the manufacturing guys.

"No."

"That's a big problem. Carriers change color schemes all the time, some to match holiday themes. And the leasing market, they move equipment between carriers like chess pieces. You have to be able to change livery in the field."

I nodded and walked to the whiteboard. Right next to the big "10.0 – Skin, 1.0 – Carbon" scoreboard I'd made, I wrote "Issues: Paint."

"So, this stuff uses power? That's gonna impact weight." This was Joyce Miller, from Systems Engineering.

"How so?" asked Marjorie's translator.

"Well, you're gonna burn fuel to get onboard power, which means more weight overall. I think 'effective weight' is a better term. Then there's wear and tear on the generators, but that's another issue."

And so "effective weight" appeared on the whiteboard.

"Forget power," grumbled Tom Hammond, flicking a piece of imaginary dirt from his Harley-Davison T-shirt (it was Casual Friday). "Lightning is your showstopper. You're changing the skin of an aircraft from a passive substance to an active device. The FAA DER will want proof it won't spasm and rip itself to pieces when it's zapped."

I nodded. Tom is not subtle. As a Designated Engineering Representative, the one who'd probably sign off on Skin for the FAA, he didn't have to be.

"Your DER," Tom continued, still using the third person, "will want a computer model of Skin's electrical as well as aeronautical characteristics. Be sure to simulate antennas, windows, and any other exterior features."

I gritted my teeth, sensing a cramp in my schedule.

And so it went, more and more issues: acid rain, bird strikes, manufacturing quality, combustibility, vibration. It was a close call, but they ran out of questions before I ran out of whiteboard.

"Sorry we're bringing up all these problems," said Jay.

"Don't apologize," answered Marjorie, who still had the stage from the manufacturing question. "After all, that's why you're here." Then, she touched her left hands together in a gesture I'd learned was an Exile grin. "Well, that and the donuts."

Chuckles all around, then a ragged chorus of "Thank you, Ford." Several balled up pieces of paper rained down on me. I returned the favor.

"Hey, Ford," chortled Jay, "maybe you can put this stuff on your hang glider!"

The price of fame. When you're the only black guy in the Soaring Club, the employee newsletter always uses your picture.

"If no one has any more questions, then . . ."

"I have one," said Tom. "Can you bring bagels next time?"

****

Score: 6.5

I'd love to say we fixed every problem handily, but I'm a lousy liar. With Joyce's fuel consumption numbers, I recalculated the "score," a weighting of manufactured cost, maintenance cost, and actual weight of Skin against carbon, from 10.0 to 6.5. Upper management gave us a pass on the initial development cost, but if that score ever went below the magic 1.0 mark the 7z7 would ditch Skin and I'd be out on the street.

Our first lightning analysis required beefing up the underlying conductor layer for better grounding (As Thomas said, "How much voltage? In an atmosphere!"). Then, a wind tunnel simulation showed more drag than expected, forcing Eleanor to develop a fiendishly costly polishing process. Acid rain showed a tendency to make Skin brittle and ready to flake under vibration, a bad thing for an aircraft to do. We added protective polymer coating, eliminating Eleanor's polishing process. She was glad to see it go, but the score dropped to 4.8.

It was death by a thousand cuts. Even if a problem didn't directly impact the effectiveness of Skin on the airplane, our solutions made manufacturing and maintenance ever more complex. The few things that didn't, such as the bird strike analysis (at least, for birds flying slower than meteors), still ate up time and budget. It wasn't enough that there was no problem: we had to prove there was no problem.

So, by the time we reached our first major milestone at Labor Day (on time and on budget, may I proudly say), I decided we needed a break.

I got everyone together and we jumped off a cliff.

****

"Everyone" is perhaps an overstatement. Thirty people showed for the picnic at Hunter's Point, but only half took up the Soaring Club's offer of a free tandem flight. That was still enough to keep three gliders busy all afternoon.

"I'm ready," declared Thomas, marching up beside me. The other club members looked at the Exile, their expressions ranging from confusion to amusement to fear. Since I'd seen Thomas on the signup list earlier that week, though, I was ready.

"Okay," I answered, waving towards the scale. "Let's get started."

The relief of the other pilots that I was the one taking Thomas up was apparent. Several followed us to my rig, each trying to show how curious they weren't.

"The altitude won't be a problem for you, will it?" I asked as we walked. "I mean, with the pressure difference and all."

"I made a point of scheduling my booster shot for yesterday," Thomas replied. This was before the Exiles had developed treatments to allow their metabolisms to permanently adapt to Earth normal atmosphere. "The physician told me I should be able to handle anything a human can."

"Great." I nodded. Then, looking around, "Hey, where's Marjorie? I would have thought she'd want to see this."

"She went up to the Habitat late last night. Her mother had an emergency."

"Oh, no. Hope she's okay."

"It appears to be a false alarm, overwork and fatigue instead of heart trouble. Marjorie should be back next week."

"Wow. I'm surprised your company flew her back. I thought they only paid for one round trip per Earthside assignment."

"They didn't pay. Marjorie's parents have done quite well for themselves lately." He hesitated. "They're really good people, though. I went to school with her father."

For a moment, I could have sworn he was being defensive. A glitch in the translator's inflection or was he embarrassed about his friend's wealth? Before I could ask anything, though, Thomas produced a grubby nylon bag.

"I brought this." He dug out what looked like an oversized bicyclist's helmet, far too oval for a human skull. The frame was rigid white plastic while the front and top was a waxy, amber substance, presumably translucent to Exile sonar.

"We normally use these for zero gravity sports. Very sturdy. I've had this one for years."

Tammy Chen, the head of our safety committee, examined a nasty gouge along the helmet's edge before returning it. "I guess it's okay. As long as the fit's snug. You, um, did sign the waiver, right?"

"Of course," Thomas answered, placing the thing on his head and tying the complex triple strap with his left hands. With his right hands he attached knee and elbow pads and then strapped a thick monocular goggle over his eyespot. When he stepped on the scale in that bizarre helmet with the four armed T-shirt and baggy shorts, I nearly choked laughing, remembering a photo of my six year old self in oversized skateboarding gear.

Of course, I broke my arm about a half hour after that particular picture was taken.

"Let me get that, Mister Patch," my daughter said, helping Thomas step into the strap harness. Like every twelve-year-old, Gina has a mothering streak when it comes to adults out of their element. Several club members pitched in, each with their own theory of how to best secure a six limbed passenger in a harness designed for humans.

I checked my own bag harness where the rigging attached to the glider's keel. In tandem hang glider flight, the pilot and passenger are side by side, unlike in sky diving where the passenger hangs downwards in front. Thomas was half the weight, so he'd also be providing half the muscle power for takeoff.

I began my preflight lecture. "All right. First, we're going to sprint down this hill." I pointed to the slope before us to eliminate any confusion that I meant some other hill. "Once at speed, I'll shout and we jump into the harnesses. At the bottom we'll have maybe twenty feet altitude. I'll tilt towards the parking lot to catch its thermal. Let me do all the flying, okay? If you get nervous, just holler and I'll land as