Second Chances (112 page)

“Well, your order to put a muzzle on her and not let her use the radio while she was here will certainly be a bit of a black eye,” Ciara said, not admitting her part in that decision. “But most people will see what she says as whining. We were within our rights,” she said. He nodded grimly. She frowned though. “I am concerned that it could impact our getting any more people to come here in the long run. We'll have to work on that,” she said thoughtfully. He grunted.

------*------

The trucks rumbled for a while even after the sun had set. When Paul judged it was too dark to travel much further he called a halt on a rise. He pulled up and then climbed out. The other trucks formed a circle around him. He detailed people to attend to camp duties or to man the watch then released a pair of drones to keep an overhead watch. Then he pulled Rozerita and the kids out. “Warrant Brown, Rozerita Estaban and family. They've lived at base for a while until Dunn's people talked her down here. Obviously it didn't work out the way she'd planned,” he said. Rozerita shook her head, looking about fearfully. “Okay, we're safe. Spill,” he growled.

Rozerita and the kids took turns explaining what had happened, how they'd been forced to work all day without any sort of schooling or time off. Miguel showed them half-healed cuts on his hands. Ruby and Fernando held their hands up to show theirs too.

Rozerita went on haltingly to tell them how Juan had played her; he'd been married. She was very bitter over that and bitter over Ciara putting her with a dimwitted ugly gaucho. “He stank and smelled,” Ruby said, shivering. The other kids including a sullen little Ricardo nodded. The guy she'd been forced into a relationship with had been brutal and abusive to both her and the kids. “I...should have listened. I didn't. I was so caught up....” She shook her head, sobbing. Ruby and the younger kids were in distress, crying too, as much as in fear and distress as well as relief.

“Well, you're going home now,” Maggie said, hugging the woman. “Right?” she demanded, glaring at the men.

Paul nodded. “I tried to tell you the grass wasn't greener,” he said. Rozerita nodded. Maggie glowered at him. He shrugged. “Well, I did. Some people have to learn the hard way I guess,” he said as he exhaled slowly.

“Definitely,” Miguel said. “I tried to tell her too. Madre...” He shook his head, manfully fighting tears.

“I'm sooo sorryy,” his mother said, reaching out to him. He flinched but let her ruffle his hair.

“We had to leave our gear and clothes behind,” Miguel said, thoroughly disgusted. “Including my tools. They took them for an
adult
,” he said snarling, fists bawled in impotent rage.

“Yeah, that'd suck,” Paul said. “Well, we can make more kid. And since you've had some lessons driving you can help drive home,” he said. Miguel perked up at that while the warrant looked horrified. “Rozerita can too,” Paul said. The woman stiffened and then bit her lip. “The distraction will do you good,” he said. She slowly nodded, then the nod picked up in speed. “Good, glad that's settled.” He turned and checked the map. “We're about three hundred...closer to three fifty kilometers from Prairie. If we break camp at dawn and haul ass, we'll get there by noon. I want a quick turn around and then we're headed for home,” he said.

Miguel and the kids cheered. Ruby hugged her mom then turned to hug Maggie and then Paul. “Thank you,” she whispered.

He patted her back and then stretched. “Okay, dinner folks, then bed. You know the drill,” he said gruffly.

------*------

Copper, Iron, the Yukon and other communities that produced metal invested more in local smelting to improve their export. The improvement in refining at Copper Town allowed them to separate out sufficient zinc for production. The zinc was critical for making a great deal of things, from brass and other alloys to galvanized nails. Copper Town also bought wire making equipment. They produced local wire and nails in various gauges, and imported Neodynium from the East Asian village to produce their own generators. The first ones were small, similar to the ones Capital exported. They were cruder, but could also be used for either wind turbines or modified for water turbine use.

The production of generators also meant they could produce electric motors as well. Bill Summerset worked with Axel and Jack to refine their construction process so Copper Town could produce components for a lot of machinery, the simplest being powered hand tools. “I don't know why I'm doing it. They are the competition,” Bill said to Mitch one evening.

Mitch shook his head. “Not competition or not an adversarial one. What they are doing is producing stuff and that means we don't have to. We can focus on other things,” he said. Bill frowned. “For instance, zinc and the motors combined with iron from Mike and the batteries, plastic, and other things we're making means, as you said, we can make powered hand tools. All they can do is make ones that plug into an outlet.”

“Okay...”

“And zinc plus iron means we can make galvanized steel such as nails,” Mitch said.

“Big deal they are doing that now...wait...” Bill frowned as Mitch smiled expectantly at him. Bill slapped his forehead. “Of course! Nails! The steel nails Mike's been making have rusted in less than four months! That's why you put in for the additional smelting gear to Copper! With better nails and screws fasteners will last longer. Okay...”

“Plastic?” Mitch asked, crossing his arms.

“What about...” Bill frowned.

“Strips? Coils?” Mitch hinted.

Bill's eyes widened. “Nail guns. Screw guns. Right,” he said. Mitch nodded. “There isn't a whole lot of call for timber structures though Mitch.”

“No, but with nails, screws, staples and other fasteners we're one step closer to improving our chances of survival here. Galvanized steel also means we can produce galvanized rebar and structural steel,” he said, changing the subject.

“Okay,” Bill said.

“I'm not looking to clone Earth,” Mitch said, making a face. Bill sniffed. “What I want to do is take what we've learned over the past ten thousand years and replicate some of the best of our modern world...and maybe even kick some really good stuff in to make this world even better.”

Bill nodded slowly. “That's why you've been going on about wind turbines and solar. Why you are exporting so much instead of doubling our own power production 0r diverting the resources to other projects,” he said.

“Exactly,” Mitch said. “Renewable energy. If we get it embedded, then when someone does finally find some oil it won't be such a big thing.”

“I see,” Bill said. “I still like the sound of a muscle car,” he said. “I guess that's coming to an end,” he said. “The roar of American muscle.”

“There is always a sound FX chip,” Mitch said. Bill snorted. “With them doing the refining, Paul's transports will be more productive. And we can focus on the next steps for electronics,” Mitch said. Bill nodded. They had already made great strides on that front.

With more and better refined feedstock and a breakthrough in electronics manufacturing meant Capital Base could produce more complex gear including copying the unmanned radio towers Mitch had brought. Akira and Jacklynn worked together with a couple Sherpas to place the towers strategically on the tops of hills and mountain once enough of the towers were produced. “Any idea when we can start making the radar arrays Piotr is harping about?”

“He's not the only one,” Mitch sighed. He'd relented enough to let Jackie move the radar array up the mountain after they'd set up some wind turbines along the mountain side to power it; in fact that project was still ongoing. Until there was a local power grid for the Doppler. it was staying put where it was. He was still worried about maintaining the machinery and electronics, but it looked like the plan would work.

“One step at a time boss,” Bill said, slapping Mitch's right bicep as he walked off whistling.

------*------

When the Esteban family was resettled in the base in new quarters Anne kept an eye on them for a time. Miguel fell into his old routine, happy to be home. The other kids fell back into daycare, but they were quiet and very reserved. Rozerita was also quiet and reserved. She tended to look away and refused to talk about what had happened. Anne let it go, content that the woman and her children were back and safe once more. Rozerita seemed ready to put the entire matter into the past; she threw herself into her work. But there was something there, a darkness. Not sadness, Anne judged, something else. She'd heard the grim story from Maggie and Paul when they had returned, the second hand details of the abuse and rape. She'd seen some of the lingering bruises on all the Estabans. It was something that needed to come out, to be lanced before too much scar tissue grew over the wounds and they festered. Miguel wouldn't talk, so finally Anne confronted her and the woman burst into tears.

“That bad, huh?” Anne said, wrapping her arms around her friend.

“It's not that. I'm pregnant,” Rozerita said.

“They...are you sure? Did you check with Doc?”

“I haven't had a period in two months,” Rozerita said. Their biological clocks were still adapting to the planet Anne reminded herself as she tried to do the math. Two local months meant...seventy Earth days. She pursed her lips. “Have you checked with Doc? Are you showing signs?”

Rozerita nodded, head down. “Okay, well, we can abort it if you want.”

“All life is precious,” Rozerita said, looking up. She bit her lip, not wanting to admit that she'd hoped the stress of the long ride back would have triggered a miscarriage. She'd kept that thought in the darkness of her mind.

“But you do...” Anne sighed and took a seat with her. “My, this is complicated isn't it?”

“Janet would say enough drama to fill a soap opera,” Rozerita said with a wan smile.

Anne snorted. “Depends on the soap. She's right though. So, you need to be checked. And if you are pregnant, then you have some decisions to make. Not easy ones,” she said.

“I'm not...we need everyone,” Rozerita said.

“Okay, but well, we've got time. First things first,” Anne said, patting her hand. She took her up and guided her to the infirmary.

------*------

The Lings finished construction of their first large autoclave built out of native materials to mark the second month of summer. The vacuum chamber was built to work with carbon fiber, the lost wax method of manufacture, and other manufacturing methods, but in large or bulk scale.

They had been put off on building the giant chamber due to the need for quality material for the vacuum chamber parts. Both of the Jims had agitated for the chamber to not only build larger scale aircraft components but also to build the space plane components.

Jim Conklin didn't get his wish that the first carbon fiber components be of a space plane however. Candy got ahead of him by making a production run of carbon fiber components for the various vehicles in the fleet, then panels and components for the current aircraft they had.

While Candy was busy monopolizing the new autoclave, Tao worked with Jacklynn and Akira to go over the blueprints of their first cargo jet, an ambitious project. Candy was leery about making the updated Airbus A300 aircraft; it was beyond anything they had done before and stretched their runway to the limit. When Jim Conklin heard what they were up to he switched tracts and pitched in to the project. Jim Evall soon followed.

He and Jim Evall had planned on combining the weather balloons with rockets. Their plan had been to use the balloons to loft a rocket up into the stratosphere, then trigger the rocket to go up further to gather sensory data. But they had run into all sorts of engineering issues and were leery of doing an all up test until they could be ironed out. A simple jet engine seemed like a much easier project.

They built a mock up at one-eighth scale out of 3D printed parts, then moved up to a half-scale test engine.

That was stalled when they realized that they lacked the proper high temperature metals to create the turbine blades. The final nail in the project's coffin was the lack of refined fuel to power the aircraft's thirsty engines. “There is no point going further right now,” Evall said, shaking his head. “That ethanol juice isn't up to jet fuel quality so you can forget it,” he said.

“Back burner,” Conklin said with a nod.

The project members were crushed by the setback...at least initially. While Tao went back to working on more crop dusters and An-38s, Jackie dug through the aircraft database until she came up with a compromise, another prop plane, but a much venerated one, the Lockheed L-100 Hercules, the civilian version of the famous C-130.

Evall had been leaning to a Short 360 or a Skyvan, and Akira had been lobbying for a second look at the XC-142, but Candy convinced the group the L-100 was worth a further look.

They started the CAD program and started swapping out old components for more modern versions they could produce with materials on hand. “Just because it's old doesn't mean we should throw it out,” Conklin warned. “If it ain't broke don't fix it.”

“Why I'm surprised at you Jim. I figured you for a pie-in-the-sky innovator,” Jackie teased. He snorted as he eyed her. She nodded. “Some of this stuff is basic. Carbon fiber body panels instead of aluminum, possibly some structural components...” She shrugged. “We'll see. It worked out pretty good with the AN-38s.”