A World Adrift by Douglas A. Van Belle

Author:Douglas A. Van Belle [Belle, Douglas A. Van]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: WordFire Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Niven turned out to be far more than an extra set of hands. He wasn’t an engineering genius or anything like that, but the kid did have a reasonably functional head on his shoulders. He listened, dug down to the heart of the idea, and was pretty good at making the jump from the problem to what needed to be done. On his own, Flint would have never thought of isolating the mechanical core from the main cabin. The idea came together with Niven’s suggestion for cutting neon loss by flushing the air locks with nitrogen from the float system, instead of leaving them hooked to the interior air system. That was brilliant, easy to do, and it would save a lot of neon. As a bonus, that idea led to them realizing that filling the cargo holds and the mechanical core with CO2 would help with their growing buoyancy problem. The deeper they dove, the floatier they became, so less space they filled with lifting gas was a good thing.

“I think we’re good,” Flint announced as he and Niven returned to the helm, bearing coffee.

“You found a way to catch more neon?” Willamette sipped the coffee and quite nearly managed to hide her cringe at the taste.

“A little bit,” Flint said. “But the real solution was to reduce the volume we need and cut the rate of loss.”

“Helm, main cabin, and the aft control room are the only areas with the nexi mix,” Niven said.

“Nexi?” Willamette thought for the briefest moment before answering her own question. “Neon and oxygen.”

“Yeah,” Flint said. “Everything we could shut off from those areas is now full of CO2, so if you need to go into either of the cargo holds or the mechanical core, or the upper air lock prep area, you’ll have to wear a breather loaded with nexi mix.”

“That sounds workable,” Em said. “And the timing’s good, because I think those lights up ahead must be our reef.”

“It’s got lights on?” Flint asked, surprised.

“It makes sense that it would have at least a few lights still on,” Niven said. “The same wind speed differentials that spin the power turbines on the keels up in the Drift would also work down here.”

“So, unless someone took the time to shut everything down as this place sank, the lights would stay on until the last one burnt out or the last turbine broke down,” Flint finished the thought, again impressed by how quickly Niven jumped straight to the details.

“How long would that take?” Willamette asked.

“Light fixtures can last decades, so it would probably depend on how long a turbine can keep running without maintenance,” Niven said, shrugging. “They’re amazingly robust so … who knows.”

“Air’s clearer than I expected down here,” Em said.

“Is that normal?” Flint asked Niven.

“Beats me,” Niven said. “This is far deeper than I would ever even think of diving after a whale.”

“This reef looks like it’s pretty damn big,” Em said. “It’s hard to get a sense of scale from a distance but take a look at the docks.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.