There were six people in the “office” shed, two of them women, all hut one of them young, wearing shabby sweaters and slacks or jeans that hadn’t known a crease for years. Dan felt overdressed in his tan slacks and suede sports jacket. One of the women was tall, with long, lank blond hair that fell past her broad shoulders. She looked like a California surfer type to Dan. Or maybe a Swede. The other was clearly Japanese or perhaps Korean: short and chunky, but when she smiled it lit up her whole face.
They all looked eager, excited to have Dan Randolph himself here to see their work, yet Dan caught a whiff of fear among them. Suppose it doesn’t work today? Suppose something goes wrong? Suppose Randolph doesn’t understand its value, its importance? Dan had felt that undercurrent in research labs all around the world; even on the Moon.
The one older man looked professorial. He wore baggy tweed trousers and a matching vest, unbuttoned. His long face was framed by a trim salt-and-pepper beard. Duncan introduced him as “Dr. Vertientes.”
“I am delighted to meet you, sir,” Dan said, automatically lapsing into Spanish as he took the man’s hand.
Vertientes’s brows rose with surprise. “You speak Spanish very well, sir.”
“My headquarters is in Venezuela.” Dan almost added that he’d once been married to a Venezuelan, but that had been too brief and too painful to bring into the conversation.
“We are a multinational group here,” Vertientes said, switching to British English, overlaid with a Castilian accent. “We speak English among ourselves.”
“Except when we curse,” said the Japanese woman.
Everyone laughed.
Much to Dan’s surprise, Duncan was the leader of the little group. The tall, distinguished Vertientes turned out to be the group’s plasma physicist. Duncan was the propulsion engineer and the driving force among them.
“You know the principle of nuclear fusion,” the Scotsman said as he led the entire group out of the office shack and toward the slightly larger shed that served as their laboratory.
Nodding, Dan said, “Four hydrogen atoms come together to form a helium atom and release energy.”
“Nuclei,” Duncan corrected. “Not atoms, their nuclei. The plasma is completely ionized.”
“Yep. Right.”
“Seven-tenths of one percent of the mass of the four original protons is converted into energy. The Sun and all the stars have been running for billions of years on that seven-tenths of one percent.”
“As long as they’re fusing hydrogen into helium,” Dan said. To show that he wasn’t entirely unlettered, he added, “Later on they start fusing helium into heavier elements.”
Duncan gave him a sidelong glance from beneath his deep black brows, then said, “Aye, but it’s only hydrogen fusion that we’re interested in.”
“Aye,” Dan murmured.
The laboratory shed wasn’t large, but the equipment in it seemed up-to-date. It looked more like a monitoring station to Dan’s practiced eye than a research laboratory. Beyond it was a bigger building that couldn’t be seen from the parking lot. The group trooped through the lab with only a perfunctory glance at its equipment, then went on to the other building.
“This is where the dirty work gets done,” Duncan said, with his devilish grin.
Dan nodded as he looked around. It was a construction shack, all right. Machine tools and an overhead crane running on heavy steel tracks. The sharp tang of machine oil in the air, bits of wire and metal shavings littering the floor. Yes, they worked in here.
“And out there,” Duncan said, pointing to a dust-caked window, “is the result.”
It didn’t look terribly impressive. Even when they stepped outside and walked up to the scaffolding, all Dan could see was a two-meter-wide metal sphere with a spaghetti factory of hoses and wires leading into it. The metal looked clean and shiny, though.
Dan rapped on it with his knuckles. “Stainless steel?”
Nodding, Duncan said, “For the outside pressure vessel. The containment sphere is a beryllium alloy.”
“Beryllium?”
“The alloy is proprietary. We’ve applied for an international patent, but you know how long that takes.”
Dan agreed glumly, then asked, “Is this all there is to it?”
With a fierce grin, Duncan said, “The best things come in the smallest packages.”