One man came forward and bowed, offering me the carefully folded radiation suit. I bowed in return and gratefully accepted the suit. We returned to the airport and were treated to another dinner of fish, rice and Sake. The leader of the Japanese group spoke to Saltzman.
“He wants to know what they can do in return for the generator,” Saltzman said.
“Oh,” I said, “I almost forgot.”
I ran to the plane and brought the drawings John had put together containing all of the information regarding the Magnetic Effect Generators. I bowed and offered the drawings to the leader. He gratefully accepted the drawings. We unrolled the drawings on the short table after we had finished dinner. Saltzman went over the drawings and explained what everything said. The leader dutifully wrote the translations in Japanese on the drawings. The session lasted until three in the morning.
“He is asking again what they can do in return for the generator and the designs,” Saltzman said.
“Tell him the generator is a gift from John and he hopes we can be friends,” I said. “The designs for the generators are also a gift, but they come with one condition: they have to be given to anyone who wants them at no cost. The price for the designs is that they have to help others without anything in return. Ask him if those terms are agreeable to him.”
The leader and Saltzman spoke briefly and bowed to one another.
“He says it will be his great honor to do as you ask and he extends his strong friendship to you and to John.”
The leader and I bowed and shook hands.
The following morning our four-person team headed back to Phoenix. After a night’s rest, we flew to Qinshan, China with another generator and our radiation suit. This time the group that met us was much larger. The leader of the group introduced himself in perfect English.
“Esteemed gentlemen and lady, welcome to China,” he said, “I am Eric Chang.”
I bowed slightly. “Mister Chang,” I said, “I am curious. If you don’t mind my asking, how did you get the name Eric?”
He smiled. “It stems from my days at Harvard,” he said. “I was young and daring in those days. In order to stand out and be remembered, I dyed my hair bright red. It didn’t take long before everyone began calling me Eric the Red, so I adopted the name.”
“And what was your major?” I asked.
“Political science and law,” he answered. “I am this region’s Premier.” He looked at the engines on John’s plane.
“The engines are electric,” I said. “No fuel limitations. Would you like a closer look?”
“I would, if you don’t mind,” he replied.
I explained how the engines were based on a resonant motor design, which we were happy to share with him. I also showed him the generators inside the plane and gave him the drawing package and technical information on how to build the generators. He showed us into a conference room at the airport and provided us with an excellent meal.
“I see the generators are made with neodymium,” Eric said. “We have no neodymium deposits in China, so I am afraid these designs will do us little good.”
I sensed he was being a little deceptive and was interested in negotiating a lot more than getting China’s nuclear reactors back under control. I glanced at Saltzman. He was looking around and seemed to be paying little attention to the conversation. Eric spoke to several of his men in the room in Chinese who immediately left the room.
“I seem to recall that China was one of the world’s largest super magnet manufacturing centers,” I said. “How many of the super magnet factories survived the meteor storm and fires?”
Eric paused, walked over to the door, opened it and spoke in Chinese again to someone in the hall.
“Please forgive my rudeness,” Eric said as he returned. “As Premier there are many things I must attend to as the day progresses. To answer your question, we have seven large super magnet facilities that are potentially functional, once electricity has been restored. One of them is not far from here. I could arrange a tour if you are so inclined.”
“We would be honored,” I replied.
As we exited the building, a small fleet of bicycle-powered rickshaws were waiting for us. We climbed in, two to a rickshaw, and were off to see the super magnet factory. Tia and I sat together with Ed and Saltzman in another. Half an hour later we arrived at the factory. Places in the brick walls had been repaired recently and the roof was still in the process of being fixed. We entered through a large open bay door.
The inside of the building was quite modern and meticulously clean.
“These are the kilns,” Eric said as he pointed to a long row of six foot diameter cylindrical pieces of equipment. “The sintering process takes different amounts of time, depending on how strong the magnets need to be. I assume we are talking N-52 grade magnets?”
I smiled. “We are,” I replied. Eric knew his stuff.
“And over here is the machining center,” Eric said as he led us into the next section of the factory. The large grinding machines were clean and appeared ready for production. “We have sufficient reserves of iron, cobalt and boron in China,” Eric continued, “If we had a reliable supply of neodymium, we would be in good shape.”
The United States was one of the world’s largest suppliers of neodymium in the world. John had briefed me on what we would be willing to offer in the way of trade.
“We would be able to supply sufficient amounts of neodymium,” I offered, “If you would be willing to make half of the shipment into super magnets for us, you could use the other half for your own use here in China or as exports, whichever you choose."
Eric studied me closely and spoke to one of his associates in Chinese.
“Your offer is acceptable to us,” Eric replied. “When would you be able to ship the mineral?”
I paused. That was one answer I didn’t have.
Saltzman spoke up. “I believe we could have the mineral here in about three months.”
Eric looked at Saltzman. “Excellent,” he replied. “We have a deal.”
As we left the building I whispered to Saltzman, “What going on?”
“Not here,” he whispered back.
The rickshaws took us to the nuclear reactor where Eric already had the generator hooked up. I handed him the radiation suit. He passed it on to one of his associates who put the suit on and walked into the reactor building. Several minutes later he emerged carrying six new radiation suits. Eric’s team quickly suited up and pulled the long wires into the reactor building. Ten minutes later they returned. We cranked the generator up and one man went back into the reactor building to verify that water was flowing into the cooling pool. It was. Eric handed our radiation suit back to us with his thanks. The rickshaws carried us back to the plane.
“Any problems?” I asked the pilot as we boarded the plane.
“Nope,” he replied. “We have had an armed guard around the plane since you left. No one in. No one out. They even brought us dinner and something to drink.”
“Okay,” I said, “back to Denver.”
CHAPTER 31
Once we were in the air I asked Saltzman what was going on.
“It’s time for us to talk,” he said, “but I want to do this with John present.”
“Too bad you don’t speak Chinese,” Tia commented.
Saltzman smiled. “Who said I don’t?”
“But you didn’t say anything when we were there,” Tia replied.
“That’s because when you have somebody like Eric Chang who speaks excellent English and assumes you don’t speak or understand his dialect of Mandarin, you learn a substantial amount by listening rather than speaking.”