11
If Sandy got the Word late, milling around the pier was evidence that others had gotten the Word wrong. The armed yacht skippers stood there at the 4 o'clock meeting beside the Cushing instead of their own 4:30. Rather than send them back to their boats to grumble for half an hour, Kris invited them to lend an ear to what the fast boats were doing.
It was a good idea.
''Can we have some of those? Anything that will keep those damn battlewagons busy elsewhere has got my vote,'' was Captain Luna's response to Chandra's briefing on the AGM 944 missiles. She got solid nods from her fellow yacht skippers.
Van Horn turned wordlessly to the Army Colonel who'd arrived late and breathless from his supply trove. ''The Navy's pretty much stole all my 944s,'' the soldier said. Before a groan could get really going, he added, ''But I got plenty of AGM-832s. I even got the launchers they come in. Normally truck mounted, they ought to go nicely on your boat hulls. The 832s aren't as quick on the acceleration as the 944s but they still kick like a mule, and we pack twelve of them to a box.'' He grinned to show one gold tooth in front. ''And we got loads and loads of them.''
''Anybody told you lately that they love you?'' Luna said.
''Not since my wife left town with a traveling Bible salesman,'' the Colonel said. ''I'll start shipping 832s to the Nuu yard just as soon as I get back.''
''You do that, love.''
''Moving right along,'' Roy said, turning to Phil, who launched quickly into his efforts to cool his engines down fast by replacing the radiators with ones of his own design. He finished with a big grin on his face.
Then Tom took a step forward. ''And if we do it that way, we'll end up dead in space with our coolant blown.''
''What'da'ya mean?'' Phil shot back.
''You're using small-tubed radiators. Small tubes from beginning to end.''
''The smallest possible to get the maximum radiation area.''
''You also get the maximum turbulence in the coolant mixture. On Santa Maria, we intentionally use something we call Nano Mix Overheat to get the max from our mining slurry. But to keep from wrecking the nanos, we cool them down before they overheat. We tried the small tubes. And kept blowing them out. Perturbation in the liquid mix when the outside cools too fast and tries to swap with the inside but there ain't enough inside. You need a larger tube to start with at the front end of the radiator, then it narrows and splits into finer tubes. Fast, but not too fast.''
''We did a computer simulation on this,'' the yard worker at Roy's elbow put in.
''You have any solid data to simulate from?''
''Well…'' he started.
''Did you do a search of the literature from Santa Maria?''
''We did a search. We didn't get anything from Santa Maria.''
''Man!'' Tom spat. His lips got thin as he shook his head in short, choppy snaps. Kris made a note that this was what Tom looked like angry; too bad Penny wasn't here to see. ''We're halfway across the galaxy. Transportation costs eat our hide. We have to have some ways of being competitive,'' Tom said, the true son of a Santa Maria mining family. Then he rattled off a long search string that only ended with ''heat transfer.''
At Roy's elbow, the yard worker talked rapidly to his computer, but Nelly was faster. A hologram sprang from Kris's chest. A schematic of a reactor, small-tube heat exchanger, red-lined. Explosion. New schematic of the same reactor, a heat exchanger that blended larger tubes that fed into smaller tubes. This time the red line bled smoothly to green.
About the time the second hologram ended, the yard worker looked up. ''I found it. That's about what it says, and no, I'd never have found it doing a regular search. Damn.''
''I guess I need Tom's designs and a new set of heat exchangers,'' Phil said, quick to change from he-bull facing he-bull to student bowing to teacher.
Tom shrugged, lopsided grin out to deflect so much of the bad that the world might have thrown at him. ''I'm just glad I could help. It is an old family secret, and I'm gonna get my hide walloped for talking out of school about it.''
''We'll try to keep it a family secret, just between us and Nuu Enterprises,'' Kris said, then leaned close as Tom stepped back into the circle of skippers. ''There was a reason I wanted your nose out of that engine room,'' she whispered. ''You're better used here than at a job the yard could do just as well.''
Now Tom blushed.
''Now that that's settled, I been thinking,'' Luna said … to catcalls from her fellow skippers. ''Back at the yacht basin, there's a few armed yachts that ain't going nowhere, just gathering dust. I figure one bit of brilliance deserves another, and what with us using bubble gum to stick some of that nice man's rockets on our boats, why don't we borrow some of those and stick a few rockets on them? So, what do you say to us dropping by, and, real friendly like, taking what we need?''
''There must be a guard or two,'' Kris said, suspecting larceny like this must normally be frowned on.
''There are, honey, but they're old and decrepit or young and want to live to be old and decrepit. What say you and I and a few of my crew go pay them a friendly visit. I really think you ought to come along. That bit of frippery around your neck is good at picking locks, I hear.''
Kris turned to Captain van Horn. ''Sir, you strike me as none too happy watching us kids having all the fun. Want to put together a hooligan flotilla of your own?''
''I was planning on calling up more reserves to man the tugs and other yard craft. Use them to provide search and rescue in orbit,'' van Horn said, pausing for a moment in thought. ''Maybe a couple of armed yachts backing them up might come in handy.''
''Some of the larger unarmed runabouts might handle the ship-to-ship rescue work very well,'' Kris said. ''The Coast Guard Reserve could crew them.'' Most of the time, the Coastie Reserve just did safety checks and caught the odd boat that got in trouble before it burned itself up on reentry or vanished forever into deep space. They were civilians for the most part, owners of small-system runabouts. Kris had gotten to know them during her skiff racing days. They were good people; would they appreciate the job she was calling them in on?
Van Horn nodded. ''I have a liaison with the Coasties. I'll see if I can't get some of them up here and give them the Search and Rescue job. That would free mine up for something.'' The Navy Captain turned to the Colonel. ''How many of those AGM-832 missiles can you lay your hands on?''
''How many you want?''
''What if I were to load up two, four small container ships with your missiles?''
The Colonel whistled. ''A whole arsenal. Hmm. You swabbies would need some help aiming them. I know just the red legs to do that. Let's you and me talk.''
Kris found herself ignored as the Captain and the Colonel walked off in animated conversation. Luna shook her head. ''Now that looks damn dangerous. There's a reason we like the Navy and Army hating each other's guts and brawling properly in any good bar. When they start working together, freedom for dishonest people like me is seriously in jeopardy.''
''Then we better be off quickly and commit whatever piracy you have planned before they can get the world so organized and law abiding that there's no room for an honest and free woman.''
''I knew a Longknife would understand,'' Luna said, grinning. ''Now, do we take the sabers, or just our smiles?''
At Kris's suggestion, they settled on smiles. With Jack at one elbow and Luna and her crew of time-displaced pirates at the other, Kris quickly found herself at the yacht docks. They were pretty much abandoned, as was most of the space station once you got away from the yards. Only an old man and his teenage grandson stood guard at the gate to the main pier.
''Was wondering when you'd show up,'' the old man said, staring up at her from where he sat in a small guardhouse beside a flimsy gate that hardly blocked the main pier's access road.