The Ecologic Secession by L. E. Modesitt Jr

Author:L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 1990-05-15T04:00:00+00:00

… XL …

“Fine. We’ve got hulls for another fifteen needleboats. We’ve got drives and basic screen units. And no controls and no jump units.” Jimjoy looked at Mera, then at the console blinking back at him.

The small office, with two consoles side by side and its single ventilator and rough-melted gray mineral walls, smelled of ozone, oil, and stale Ecolitans.

The apprentice who had just recently been a fourth-year student looked back at the Ecolitan professor. “Not bad, considering how little time we’ve had.”

“Right,” he snorted. “Except that without the micros for the screens and the grav-field controls, all we have is well-designed junk. There’s still no response from the Institute. If we had just two lousy chip bloc machines…”

Jimjoy stood up and glared at the console, as if it were the nonresponsive Institute. He shrugged. “Going over to the magic shop.”

“When will you be back?”

“Whenever…whenever.”

“Don’t forget that fax cube.”

“Oh—thanks.” Jimjoy picked up the cube he had made for Jorje. For the past day it had rested on the console because he had kept forgetting to send it.

“Do you think Jason can do it?”

“I can hope.” He shrugged again, then lowered his head to clear the hatch, easing it shut behind him.

His boots echoed in the empty corridor, the sound bouncing from the melted rock beneath to the melted borehole walls and back again. This latest addition to Thalos station had not been developed with long-term comfort in mind, but with cobbled-together equipment as a manufacturing/staging/facility.

While some of the Impies had probably learned the Institute had hidden facilities off Accord, trying to locate and neutralize them without an in-system base would require more resources than they could afford, not to mention better intelligence. Not even Harlinn knew exactly where the new facility was located.

Jimjoy looked back over his shoulder. Mera had not left his/their office.

At irregular intervals, hatchlocks punctuated the corridor. Jimjoy entered the third hatch on the right, south of his office. Inside, before a small console from which ran a handful of silvery cables, sat a youngster with short, nearly stubbly black hair. He did not look up from the console, which displayed a three-dimensional circuit bloc design.

Jimjoy watched as the bloc was rotated on the screen, broken apart, and reconfigured. Finally, he coughed.

“Oh—Professor!”

“Jason.” Jimjoy inclined his head. “Any luck?”

“Yes and no. I think I can adapt standard fax transceivers and an obscure design probe, plus other assorted junk, into a screen controller…or a reasonable facsimile thereof.”

“But we only have enough of that stuff for one or two boats?”

“Maybe three—if the shop doesn’t make any fabrication errors.”

“Forget that.”

Jason nodded slowly.

“What about grav-field and jump units?”

“Do we need grav-fields on all the boats?”

Jimjoy pursed his lips. “Probably not. But that means heavier hulls and more reliance on the screens.”

“We can design around that.”

“The jump units?”

“That’s the hardest. I can build one from the subcomponents, but I don’t know enough and we don’t have the documentation to redesign from other stuff.”

“I was afraid of that. Who makes them?”

“Veletar, Osmux…”

“That’s Imperial?”

“Yeah.”

“Where do Halston and the Fuards get theirs?”

Jason shrugged.

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