“Kronia needs him too,” Keene answered. “Nuclear engineers are no use without food.”
“How could we grow food without energy?” Myel said.
Good manners had been observed without conceding false modesty, which would be considered foolish on Kronia—like throwing away money. It had also been proper for Keene to ask Carlen’s name. Establishing names was important. Having an identity meant that a person mattered. Being dismissed as of no consequence was the ultimate Kronian snub.
A thruster fired briefly somewhere, and Keene felt the mild nudge of the transorbital correcting course.
“Weren’t you a propulsion specialist back on Earth?” Esh asked Keene after a short lull.
“Yes. But there were always obstacles. The technology and knowledge for advanced systems had been available for a long time. But everything had gotten to be a political battle there.”
Esh nodded—although no one who was Kronian-born, particularly of his age, could have understood the historical antagonisms that came with Terran politics and economics. “How does propulsion engineering fit in with power generation?” he asked curiously. “I’d have thought it was more the opposite—using it, not making it.”
Keene hesitated, but the other two seemed interested as well. With its anticipated growth and the necessity now for total self-sufficiency, larger and more efficient power sources were one of Kronia’s most important needs. Keene’s experience with controlling hot propulsion plasmas qualified him for developing better ways of turning raw, violent heat into usable electricity.
“Are you familiar with MHD?” he asked them.
Bryd frowned. “Mag— magneto-something, isn’t it . . . ?” He looked at Myel. She shrugged and passed.
“Hydro . . .” Esh supplied.
Keene grinned and rescued them. “Magnetohydrodynamics. It’s a way of converting heat to power—well-suited to nuclear. What you do is blast the plasma from a fusion reactor—which consists of hot, fast-moving, electrically charged ions—through a system of conductors to induce a current directly. It does away with the train of machinery that early generating plants had: some kind of furnace, heating a boiler that sent steam to a turbine—all just to turn the generator at the end. A lot simpler; very efficient.”
“So didn’t they use it on Earth?” Myel said, sounding surprised.
“Oh, it was kicked around for decades,” Keene replied. “But the trick is in getting hot enough plasmas, and there were endless political problems with anything nuclear.” He made a throwing-away gesture. “But the spacecraft nucleonics that I was working on adapts perfectly for the job. You propel the ship and generate all your power with the same system. It’s neat. And you can turn the idea around the other way too. That’s what we’re working on at Tesla.” He nodded at Esh, finally answering his question.
“How do you mean, the other way around?” Esh asked.
“A space vessel capable of functioning as a self-contained generating station when on the ground,” Keene said. “Ideal for setting up new exploration bases around the Solar System. No need to transport separate, bulky equipment. And it would be able to deliver immediately.”
“Vital work, indeed,” Esh observed after thinking it through. “Kronia needs people like you, Dr. Keene. We’re glad you made it here.”
“The privilege is mine,” Keene told them.
There had been more to Esh’s remark than simple politeness. Kronia had been founded by gifted but disaffected individuals in search of meaning and purpose. They rejected the doctrine that human existence was no more than a pointless accident as had come to be generally believed on Earth, and sought something better than the abandonment to materialism and personal alienation that they saw as having been largely the result of it. As the colony grew and assumed its own ways and form, notions based on Earth’s traditional monetary concepts proved not especially suitable as an indicator of the values of things and a measure of personal worth in the unique circumstances that prevailed there.
In a hostile environment far removed from any naturally renewing source of the necessities of life, the knowledge, skills, and dedication that an individual contributed to ensuring the viability of the colony as a whole meant more than acquiring such tokens as money and possessions, which in themselves were useless to anyone else. Hence, a system established itself in which self-esteem stemmed from the acceptance of duty and obligation and the proficiency shown in discharging them, instead of demands for “rights”—or the laying of obligations on others. Personal reward came from what amounted to the recognition of one’s value in those terms.