Castaway Planet - eARC by Eric Flint & Ryk E Spoor

Author:Eric Flint & Ryk E Spoor [Flint, Eric & Spoor, Ryk E]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, science fiction, Hard Science Fiction, General, Action & Adventure
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2015-02-03T10:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

“Well, that sort of works,” Whips said grudgingly, looking at the centimeter-wide hole in the side of the downed column. “But if we have to do that for all the holes we want, that have to be something like twenty or thirty centimeters wide, this could take years.”

“I know.” Sakura felt irrational frustration welling up in her and managed, barely, to resist the urge to kick the massive stony thing. “That hedral is pretty acidic, but that’s only by comparison with other things; it’s more like a lemon or orange. Tastes kinda like one, too.”

The “hedral” was one of the fruits that Akira and Laura had cleared for consumption, with a fresh, sour taste that came from citric acid, just as in Earth citrus fruits. That particular chemical was a common part of certain metabolic pathways which were nearly universal. Laura had dubbed the fruits “hedrals” because they came in faceted shapes somewhat like multi-sided dice.

“It proves we were right; concentrated acids will weaken the material. Probably carbonic acid in the atmosphere slowly dissolves them too. If we had a stronger acid…”

“But we don’t. Not right now. Mel and Mom have been looking into making chemical stuff, and from what we’ve got right now, things like nitric acid and sulphuric are just not in the picture. You might get some hydrochloric out of animals’ stomachs or something, and Mel said that one of her references says something about making it by heating salt in clay vessels, but that sounds like something really dangerous to me.” Sakura heard her voice rising slightly unsteadily, sounding much angrier and more worried than made sense.

Whips either didn’t notice or chose to ignore it, instead just waving his arms in agreement. “Hmm…yes, that could work. High temperature steam and salt…that would produce hydrochloric acid and soda, which could be useful. But you’re right about needing to be very careful. I’m not sure we’ve got anything quite like clay, anyway, but it would be a problem.”

Sakura took a deep breath. She knew she’d been touchier than usual and not just because of her stupid moment that almost got her killed. She had to make sure she didn’t start snapping at people. She glanced over at other parts of the fallen column. Attempts to just chop or gouge through the massive walls of the thing had mostly failed miserably; her father thought that if they had a good hard-steel pickaxe and someone strong enough to use it well they might get somewhere, but almost all the metal they had was much more lightweight and not at all suited for that kind of purpose—even if they could forge something that large and heavy, something that Whips wasn’t sure of even with a large solar furnace for heat.

A black-edged hole was visible a little ways down the column—demonstrating that fire could also weaken the material over a fairly wide area. “If we had a blowtorch we could get this done a lot faster.”

“Yes,” agreed Whips. “But we don’t.”

“You’re a lot of help.

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