Iain Banks by The Crow Road

Author:The Crow Road
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-07-24T09:58:58+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

This is the Specialist Glass Division,’ Hamish said, opening a door. They found themselves in a long corridor with one glass wall that looked out into a bright, modern, open-plan and spacious area. Everything gleamed and the few people visible wore white coats; apart from the exposed brickwork of a couple of rotund furnaces, linked to the ceiling by shining metal ductwork, the place looked more like a laboratory than a factory.

There was a silence none of the three brothers seemed inclined to fill. Hamish, an immaculate white coat over his three piece suit, gazed with a rapt expression at the almost static panorama on the far side of the glass. Kenneth looked bored. Rory stood at Janice Rae’s side, humming something monotonous, one arm round Janice’s waist and attempting to tickle her, just above her right hip. ‘Very clean,’ Janice said eventually.

‘Yes,’ Hamish said gravely. He nodded slowly, still observing the scene beyond the glass. ‘It has to be, of course.’ He turned to the tables against the wall behind them, on which lay various glassy-looking objects, some in display cabinets, most loose, all with explanatory notes stuck to the wall above them. From a wooden plinth on one table, Hamish picked up a dull black cone that looked a little like a Viking helmet without the horns.

‘This is a missile nose-cone,’ he said, turning the cone over in his hands. He held it out to Janice. She took it.

‘Hmm. Quite heavy,’ she said. Rory tickled her again and she nudged him.

‘Yes, heavy,’ Hamish said gravely, taking it back and carefully replacing it on its wooden block. ‘Strictly speaking, this is a glass ceramic rather than ordinary glass,’ he said, adjusting the precise position of the nose cone on the plinth. ‘The basis is lithium aluminosilicate, which withstands heat very well. Cooker hobs are made from this sort of thing…and obviously missiles need to withstand a lot of heat from friction with the air.’

‘Obviously,’ Kenneth said. He and Rory exchanged looks.

Hamish turned to another exhibit; a broad bowl, also dull and dark, and over half a metre across, it was like a gigantic plate with no lip. He lifted an edge so that they could look underneath, where it was criss-crossed with a lattice of deep ribs.

‘Satellite aerial?’ Kenneth said.

‘No,’ Hamish said, though a hint of a smile crossed his dour face. ‘No, this is a substrate for an astronomical telescope mirror.’

‘Like the one Fergus has in the castle?’ Rory asked.

That’s right. All the substrates and optics for Mr Urvill’s telescope were made here. Though of course they were on a smaller scale than this piece.’ Hamish lowered the edge of the bowl and flicked a bit of dust off one edge. ‘This is made from the same type of material as the nose cone there. It resists distortion under thermal shock.’

‘Hmm,’ Janice in a tone that suggested that she was really trying to be interested as well as sound it.

‘Over here,’ Hamish said, plodding towards another table,

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