The Bloodline Feud (Merchant Princes Omnibus 1) (59 page)

After the best part of two hours, both Bates and Sir Durant were reclining in their chairs. Miriam felt bloated and silently cursed the etiquette that prevented her from leaving the table for a
minute, but the last-minute addition of an excellent glass of vintage port seemed to have helped loosen Alfred up. Especially after Miriam had asked a couple of leading questions about brake shoe
manufacture, which veered dangerously close to discussing business.

‘You seem to me to be unusually interested in brakes,’ Sir Durant said, cupping his glass in one hand and staring at her across the table with the expression of a well-fed and
somewhat cynical vulture. ‘If you’ll pardon me for saying this, it’s a somewhat singular interest in one of the fairer sex.’

‘I like to think I have lots of singular interests.’ Miriam smiled.
Patronizing old bastard.
‘I have spent much of my time traveling to far places and I’m afraid
my education in the more feminine arts may be a little lacking. Business, however, is another matter.’

‘Ah, business.’ Bates nodded knowingly, and Miriam had to actively resist the temptation to kick him under the table.

‘Business.’ Durant, too, nodded. ‘I noticed your purchase of a company – was it by any chance Dalkeith, Sidney and Fleming? – with interest. A fine engineering
venture, once upon a time.’

Miriam nodded. ‘I like to get my hands dirty. By proxy,’ she added, glancing at Bates. ‘It’s something of a hobby. My father taught me never to take anything for granted,
and I extended the lesson to the tools in his workshop.’

‘I see.’ Durant nodded. ‘I found the, ah,
samples
you sent me most interesting.’

‘Good.’ When she smiled this widely, Miriam’s cheeks dimpled: She hated to be reminded of it, but there was no escaping the huge gilt-framed mirror hanging above the sideboard
opposite. ‘That was the idea.’

‘My men applied one of the samples to a test brake engine. The results were precisely as your letter promised.’

‘Indeed.’ Miriam put her glass down. ‘I wouldn’t waste your time, Sir Alfred. I don’t like to mince words. I’m a woman in a hurry, and I wanted to get your
attention.’

‘Can you provide more samples?’

‘Yes. It will take about a month to provide them in significant quantities, though. And the special assembly for applying them.’ It had taken a week to get the chrysotile samples in
the first place, and longer to set up the workshop, have them ground to powder, and set into the appropriate resin matrix. Epoxide resins were available here, but not widely used outside the
furniture trade. Likewise, asbestos and rock wool – chrysotile – could be imported from Canada, but were only really used in insulating furnaces. The young industrial chemist Miriam had
hired through Bates’s offices, and the other three workers in her makeshift research laboratory, were initially startled by her proposal, but went along with it. The resulting grayish lumps
didn’t look very impressive, and could certainly do with much refinement, but the principle was sound. And she wouldn’t be stopping with asbestos brakes – she intended to
obsolesce it as rapidly as she’d introduced it, within a very few years, once she got her research and development department used to a steady drip feed of advanced materials from the other
world. ‘The patents are also progressing nicely, both on the brake material and on the refinements we intend to apply to its use.’ She let her teeth show. ‘The band brake and the
wheel brake will be ancient history within two years.’

‘I’d like to know how you propose to produce the material in sufficient volume to achieve that,’ said Sir Durant. ‘There’s a big difference between a laboratory
experiment and – ’

‘I’m not going to,’ Miriam butted in. ‘
You
are.’ She stopped smiling. ‘That’s what this meeting is about.’

‘If I disagree?’ He raised his glass. Miriam caught Bates shrinking back in his chair out of the corner of her eye.

‘You’re not the only fish in the lake.’ Miriam leaned back and stifled a yawn. ‘Excuse me, please, I find it rather hot in here.’ She met Sir Durant’s gaze.
‘Sir Alfred, if man is to travel faster, he will have to learn to stop more efficiently first, lest he meet with an unfortunate accident.
You
made your fortune by selling
pneumatismic wheels – if you pause to consider the matter, I’m sure you’ll agree that cars that travel faster and stop harder will need more and better pneumatismics, too.
I’m prepared to offer you a monopoly on the new brake material and a system that will use it more efficiently than wheel brakes or band brakes – in return for a share in the profits.
I’m going to plow back those profits into research in ways to improve automotive transport. Here and
now
– ’ she laid a fingertip on the table for emphasis –
‘there is one car for every thirty-two people in New Britain. If we can make motoring more popular, to the point where there is one car for every two people – ’ she broke off.

‘Not very ambitious, are you?’ Sir Durant asked lightly. At the other side of the table Bates was gaping at her, utterly at a loss for words.

Many thoughts collided in Miriam’s mind at that moment, a multi-vehicle pileup of possible responses. But the one that found its way to her lips was, ‘not hardly!’ She picked
up her glass, seeing that it was nearly empty, and raised it. ‘I’d like to propose a toast to the future of the automobile: A car for every home!’

*

Miriam was able to rent premises for her company in a former engineering shop on the far side of town. She commuted to it by cab from the hotel while she waited for Bates to
process the paperwork for her house purchase. She was acutely aware of how fast the luxury accommodation was gobbling her funds, but there didn’t seem to be a sensible alternative – not
if she wanted to keep up the front of being a rich widow, able to entertain possible investors and business partners in style. Eventually she’d have to buy a steam car – but not this
year’s model.

The next morning she hailed a cab outside without lingering for breakfast. The air was icy cold but thankfully clear of smog. As the cab clattered across tram rails and turned toward New
Highgate, she closed her eyes, trying to get her thoughts in order.

‘Two weeks,’ she told herself. She’d been here for six nights already and it felt like an eternity. Living out of suitcases grew old fast and she’d shed any lingering
ideas of the romance of travel back when she was covering trade shows and haunting the frequent flyer lounges. Now it was just wearying, and even an expensive hotel suite didn’t help much. It
lacked certain essential comforts – privacy, security, the sensation of not being in
public
the whole time. She was getting used to the odd clothing and weird manners but doubted
she’d ever be comfortable with them. And besides, she was missing Roland, waking sometimes from vague sensual dreams to find herself alone in a foreign city. ‘Seven more days and I can
go home!’ Home, to her own house, if she could just lean on Angbard a bit harder – failing that, to the office, where she could lock the door, turn on the TV, and at least understand
everything she was seeing.

The cab arrived. Miriam paid the driver and stepped out. The door to the shop was already unlocked, so she went straight in and opened up the office. It was small but modern, furnished in wood
and equipped with electric lamps, a telephone, and one of the weird chord-key typewriters balanced precariously on one of the high, slanted writing desks. It was also freezing cold until she lit
the gas fire. Only when it was blazing did she go through the mail then head for the lab.

The lab was a former woodworking shop, and right now it was a mess. Roger had moved a row of benches up against one wall, balanced glass-fronted cabinets on top of them, and made enthusiastic
use of her line of credit at an instrument maker’s shop. The results included a small potter’s kiln – converted into a makeshift furnace – and a hole in the ceiling where
tomorrow a carpenter would call to begin building a fume cupboard. Roger was already at work, digging into a wooden crate that he’d manhandled into the center of the floor. ‘Good
morning to you,’ said Miriam. ‘How’s it going?’

‘I’ll tell you when I get into this,’ Roger grunted. He was in his late twenties, untidy even in a formal suit, and blessed with none of the social graces that would have
allowed him to hang onto his job when the Salisbury Works had shed a third of their staff three months earlier. Rudeness concealed shyness; he’d been completely nonplussed by Miriam at first,
and was still uneasy in her presence.

‘That’ll be the chrysotile from Union Québécois,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘It should be. If they haven’t sent us rock salt by mistake again.’ He laid down his crowbar and straightened up, panting, his breath steaming in the cold air.

‘If they have, they’ll pay for it. Go make yourself a pot of tea, I don’t want you freezing to death on the job.’

‘Um, yes, Ma’am.’ Roger shuffled toward the other back room – the one Miriam intended to have converted into a kitchen and indoor toilet block for the work force –
that currently held only a cast-iron wood stove, a stack of lumber, and a kettle. He gave her a wide berth, as if being female in the workplace might be contagious. Miriam watched his back
disappear before she knelt to pick up the crowbar, and went around the lid of the crate levering out the retaining nails.
Men.
She laid the crowbar down and dusted herself off before he
returned, bearing a chipped mug containing some liquid as dark as coffee.

‘I think you’ll find it easier to open now,’ Miriam remarked, laying one hand on the lid. ‘What have you got in mind for resin processing this week?’

‘I was thinking about the vulcanization process,’ Roger mumbled. ‘I want to see how varying the sulfate concentration affects the stiffness of the finished mixture.’

‘I was asking about resins,’ Miriam pointed out. ‘In particular, the epoxide sample I suggested you look into on Thursday. Have you done anything with it yet?’

‘Um, I was getting to it.’ Roger looked away bashfully.

‘That’s why I suggested a timetable,’ said Miriam. ‘You can estimate how long each batch will take to run; you already do that for yourself, don’t you? Put the
timetable on the blackboard and I won’t have to keep asking you the same questions.’

‘Oh, all right then.’ He nodded.

‘I wanted the epoxide sample running as soon as possible because we have a possible customer,’ she added.

‘A customer?’ He brightened visibly.

‘Yes, a customer. But we won’t have them if we don’t have a suitable product, will we? They’re going to want an extensive range of samples in about four weeks’
time, for their own materials-testing people. That’s why I want you to get on to the epoxide-based samples right now. If you time the kiln runs right, you can probably put your sulfate
experiments through at the same time. Just as long as they don’t hold up the epoxide.’

‘I’ll do it that way, then,’ he said, almost carelessly. And he would. She’d met Roger’s type before, hammering keyboards into submission in dot-com start-ups.
He’d work overnight if he had to, without even noticing, just to get the product ready to meet the deadline – as long as he had a target to aim for. All this thrashing about with rubber
and vulcanization processes was just a distraction.

‘I’m going to be in the office today,’ she added. ‘I’ve got an idea to work on. The carpenter will be in here tomorrow to work on the fume cupboard, and then the
kitchen. Meanwhile, you wouldn’t happen to know any model engineers looking for work? I have some mechanical assemblies to get started.’

‘Mechanical – ’ He almost went cross-eyed. ‘Why?’

‘A better way of applying this wonderful high-friction material to the task of stopping a moving vehicle. You think this high-friction compound will work well if you just clamp it to a
pneumatismic? It’ll work – right until the rubber wall of the pneumatismic wears through and it blows out. What we need is a hub-mounted disk bolted to the wheel with a block of brake
material to either side, which can be clamped or released by hydraulic calipers, balanced to apply force evenly. With me so far?’

‘Um, I think so.’ He looked abstracted. ‘I, I don’t know any model artificers. I’m sorry. But I’m sure you’ll find someone.’

‘Oh I think I will, indeed I do.’ She headed back to the office, leaving Roger wrestling a ten-kilogram lump of very high-grade rock wool onto his workbench.

The day passed in a blur. Miriam had rigged a travel transformer for her laptop, which she kept in a locked drawer in the office along with an inkjet printer and a small digitizer tablet. The
CAD software was a pain to use with such a small screen, but far better than the huge draftsman’s board and ink pens in the far corner of the room. Between calls she lost herself in an
extruded 3D model of a brake assembly – one of her own invention, crude but recognizable as the ancestor of late-twentieth-century disk brakes. Another file awaited her attention –
steel radial bands for reinforcing tires. The idea was sound, but she kept having to divert into her physics and engineering textbooks. Her calculus was rustier than she was willing to admit, and
she was finding some of the work extremely hard.

But perfection didn’t matter.
Getting there first
mattered. Get there first and just-good-enough and you could buy the specialists to polish the design to perfection later. This
was the lesson Miriam had learned from watching over the shoulders of her Silicon Valley colleagues, and from watching a myriad of biotech companies rise and fall – and it was the lesson she
intended to shove up New Britain’s industrialists so hard it made them squeak.

One o’clock. Miriam blinked, suddenly dizzy. Her buttocks ached from the hard stool, she was hungry, and she needed the lavatory. She stood up and put the notebook PC away, then headed for
the toilet – an outhouse in the backyard. Afterwards she slipped out the front door in search of lunch. Of such elements were a working day made.

In the public environment of the hotel, or the lab, she cut an eccentric, possibly scandalous figure. On the streets she was just another woman, better dressed than most, hurrying about her
errands. Anonymity of a kind:
Treasure it while you can,
she told herself as she lined up at a street corner where a baker’s boy had set up a stand to sell hot bacon rolls.
It
won’t last.