Europa by Robert Mills

Europa by Robert Mills

Author:Robert Mills
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
Published: 2017-10-15T16:00:00+00:00


Chapter Seventeen

The success of Piper and Shaw was, I believe, the result of the complementary talents that Marvin and I possessed. Marvin had an excellent grasp of the technical aspects of the business and a knack of reaching agreements with customers that were in our favour. He found the day-to-day running of the company tedious and this was the area where my natural organisational skills came into their own. Marvin was frequently away for days at a time on business and it was left to me to keep things ticking over smoothly in the office and workshops. There were times when I was envious of his trips away, but I recognised the importance of my role and the considerable benefits to my family and I that accrued from our success. When the company was at its most profitable, I was earning more money than I’d ever thought was possible.

It was therefore something of a surprise when Marvin suggested that I accompany him on a visit to another Jovian moon, Ganymede. It wasn’t considered suitable for the establishment of a colony like that on Europa but the crust contains important minerals, including iron and magnesium, and ammonia which is in great demands in the Jovian system for making fertiliser. A substantial and highly automated mining operation had been established there and inevitably that meant that there were a great many robots to be maintained.

Meena raised no objections to my going along and the flights were duly booked. I found myself looking forward to the trip with eager anticipation. This was my first flight on the Jovian Shuttle. The ship we travelled on back then was small and slow by modern standards, but for me it was an exciting experience. We had a fine view of the mountainous surface of Ganymede as we approached, so different to the smooth, icy surface of our home. The spaceport was small, as visitors were few and only went there on business.

Radiation levels on Ganymede are lower than those on Europa but nonetheless protective suits must be worn by anyone working outside in the open. There are no easily accessible caves, so all the buildings are on the surface, as they are on Callisto, but their construction includes a thick layer of radiation-proof material. Mining in this environment presents significant challenges, but technology had been developed to overcome these, including specialised robots.

We stayed at the Ganymede Hilton Hotel, an enormous building standing on piles driven deep into the moon’s surface. The next morning we were up and out early to visit the local offices of the company that runs the mining operation, the Universal Mining Corporation. We were one of a number of bidders for the contract to maintain their robotic workforce and Marvin made a presentation to the company’s senior executives. We knew that the weakness of our case was that we would need to recruit a number of additional technicians in order to cope with the additional workload, whereas at least one of our competitors had sufficient spare capacity to deal with the work involved.



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