“Uh,” the Eng said, staring blankly at Miriam.
“But skipping trying to explain Ligand Field theory, the effect was the creation of ligands or coordinate covalent bonds under conditions that were stochastically unlikely absent the chaotic interactions of the fields and now seem to be stochastically certain. In other words: The coordinate covalent bonds that were created throughout the molycirc shouldn’t be possible in this universe. The molybdenum and rhenium transition metals simply don’t work that way. The chaos field phenomenon caused them to form quadruple coordinate covalent bonds which became powdery brittle in the weak chaos fields that were escaping the chaos ball generator’s shielding. There was also some di-tungsten hexa hydro pyrimido pyrimidine ligands that formed but not as many. The spectral analysis of the degraded molycirc showed a bunch of odd materials. I’m making a really detailed record because there are some covalent bonds that might theoretically be useful. Some of the materials have structures and properties more similar to rare elements than molecules.
“Bottomline: The molycirc couldn’t take the stress of the chaos generator field after the fractal odd order phenomenon occurred within the material’s matrix. Oh, there was also some issue with lanthanide contraction, but it was less catastrophic as the other phenomenon. I think the lanthanide contraction was supposed to be stabilized by the molycirc and the chaos messed that up. Secondary effect rather than primary.”
“Oh.”
“At least that’s what I think happened. Might wanna run it by Bill when you get the chance.”
“Okay,” the Eng said, his eyes wide. “But I think you’re going to have to run it by him. You lost me at Planck-length shell and fundamental cosmic chaos. I can’t even pronounce the di-tungsten hexa… hydra, uh whatever you said.”
“Being a linguist makes saying chemical compounds easier for me. I can show you the equations and the spectral analysis if you’d like to see them,” Miriam said distantly. She was only half listening to the Eng at this point.
“No, that’s shiny,” the Eng said. “Actually, on second thought — ”
“I just fired them over to your e-mail,” Miriam said. “Anyway, we can produce the molycirc we need in the fabber. It’s slow, it’s about the slowest thing the fabber makes, which is why I left it as the last part we’re going to have to replace. But we can do it. We just need a source of osmium. We also need some molybdenum but there’s so much chromoly steel on the ship that won’t be a problem.”
“A source of osmium?” the Eng said. “I don’t happen to have one on me…”
“Then find one,” Miriam said. “I’m sort of busy here.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the Eng replied, snapping to attention. “I’ll get right on it.”
“Osmium?” Captain Prael asked.
“A heavy metal,” Weaver said distantly. “Atomic number 76 on the periodic table, atomic weight 190.23, in the platinum group, extraordinarily dense due to the lanthanide contraction.”
“Which, apparently, we have to stabilize,” the Eng noted.
“I know what osmium is,” Prael snapped. “More or less,” he added, less assuredly. “I used to know all this…”
“So do I,” the Eng said. “And all the rest. I mean, I knew it was a lanthanide but I had to go look it up again to refresh my memory.”
“Lanthanide?” Prael said. “That’s what uranium is. It’s not radioactive, is it?”
“No, sir,” Bill replied. “Lanthanides just have higher density than their position on the periodic table would suggest due to contraction of their electron shells. Most of the heavy metal radioactives are lanthanides, but all lanthanides are not radioactive.”
“I did find out it is a bugger to extract from all the other metals it’s usually associated with,” Commander Oldfield said.
“That’s not an issue,” Bill said, looking up. “The fabber will handle the extraction.”
“How?” the Eng asked curiously.
“If I knew that I’d be making gigabucks back on earth,” Bill said. “Or a Hexosehr. But all we need is some osmium ore.”
“And where are we going to get some in deep space?” the CO asked. “That’s the issue. I’d really like to have all my guns working before we get to an area where there might be Dreen.”
“Asteroids,” Weaver said. “Comets. Osmium is one of the deposition metals that geologists look for to determine major impacts along with iridium. I think we need to go asteroid mining. What’s the nearest solar system?”
“How much of this stuff do we need?” Chief Gestner asked.
“A lot,” Miriam replied. “Almost five kilograms.”
“That’s a lot?” Gestner asked.
“Uh…” Miriam temporized.
“That’s about sixty thousand dollars worth,” Sub Dude said, chuckling. “Think gold mining, Chief. Stuff’s actually more expensive than gold.”
“Holy maulk,” the chief said, his eyes wide.
“The problem is, we’re going to have to run through a bunch of ore to get that,” Miriam said. “The fabber will discard the waste, but it’s going to get messy. We’ll probably do it in two phases, one that just extracts the heavy metals then another that takes that and makes the molycircs. And this fabber’s maw is small. So the stuff’s going to have to be broken down into…”
“Skull-sized pieces,” Red said. “More or less. You can get your head in the fabber if you sort of turn sideways…”
“Yeah, shiny, I get the idea,” the chief said. “That’s really going to grapp up my shop.”
“Not if we move the fabber out,” Sub Dude pointed out. “Miriam, didn’t we use this model in vacuum when we were working on the ship?”
“It’s vacuum rated,” Miriam said. “Everything on the ship that’s Hexosehr is.”
“So we do it on the hull,” Sub Dude said, shrugging.
“So the plan is we do the fabbing on the hull?” the chief asked. “In vacuum?”
“Makes the most sense,” Red said. “That way we just leave our mess behind.”
“Shiny,” the chief said. “And we need head-sized nodules, which means breaking up an asteroid to get them. So, who gets that job?”