Princess Rescue Inc (106 page)

“I
think he's a little too big for his toy,” Wanda chuckled. Ryans turned back to
the show before them. Wanda had come out to see what the hell was going on when
she saw the tracks and the guys hanging around them. She'd wondered what was
up. It was now obvious and she was glad she was here to see it. She was
still  getting used to being followed around by a soldier. It looked like
Ryans had gotten used to his entourage. He had a pair of soldiers and Answorth
in his wake.

“Yup,
just a tad bit,” Ryans said smiling as they watched Max and Scooter argue over
who got to drive.

“Boys,
Boys! One at a time! Take turns or I'll take your toy away!” Wanda called. They
both glared at her and then shrugged. They did a couple of passes at rock paper
scissors before Scooter won. Grumbling Max got out and watched the mechanic
climb in.

“Looks
like fun. If they ever get the thing working that is,” Wanda chuckled. “Maybe
I'll have a go,” she said smiling.

Scooter
accidentally pulled the whistle, people started at the loud high pitched steam
powered sound. “Well, it works!” he said grinning. He used the tiny shovel to
shovel some coal into the tinderbox, then closed the door with the blade of the
shovel and hit the brake release.

“Not
going anywhere,” Ryans observed dryly.

“Wait
for it. Remember they've got a lot of bulk to get up to speed,” Wanda replied.

“What
do you mean? There's only Scooter on it,” Ryans said giving her a look.

“Exactly
what I meant,” she said smiling. She waved as the machine began to chug, then
move faster. Steam was coming out of the side pistons, almost as much as the
smoke coming out of the smoke stack on top. “Not bad,” she said watching the
industrial students cheer, “not bad at all. Is this supposed to be a test
project or a model for something greater?” she asked crossing her arms.

“Both.
This can be a production model for trains in the mines actually,” Ryans
answered. He watched as the train built up speed then began to rumble down the
test track.

“That
is if Scooter remembers to brake!” he called, voice rising in volume at the
last word. Scooter raised his hand with a one fingered salute then hit the
brake.

“Not
good,” Wanda said watching as the brakes kicked in but the wheels kept
pistoning. Something broke and parts began to clang out from under the vehicle.

“Oh
definitely,” Ryans said sounding resigned as he started to trot toward the
runaway locomotive.

“Yup,
that's not good. Is he going to bail?” Wanda asked starting to trot. Max and
the students jogged past them.

“Right
about...” Ryans said watching the mechanic frantically pulling levers then
putting his feet out to try to slow the lumbering craft.

“Pull
the steam release valve you dang fool!” Max bellowed, cupping his hands to his
mouth. “The steam release valve!”

Scooter
looked back and pulled the valve. Steam poured out of the emergency vents,
mixing with the smoke and dust. They could just make out the shadowy sight of
him bailing out as the train hit the end-stop and crashed through into the hay
bales and dirt berm beyond.

“Oh
boy,” Wanda said shaking her head. “See if he ever drives again. Shouldn't we
call Doc?” she asked as they thundered up to the crash.

Scooter
was sitting on his ass on the side, brushing himself off with his hat. He was
laughing. “What the hell's so funny?” Max snarled as he passed. He was throwing
out orders to salvage what they could. One of the apprentices sprayed the
wreckage with a makeshift fire extinguisher.

Ryans
offered a hand. Scooter took it. “Well, that was fun,” Scooter said getting up.
He brushed the seat of his pants off and then smiled to Wanda.

“Not
hurt I take it?” she asked, clearly amused.

“Only
my pride,” he said rubbing his posterior. She giggled.

“What
happened?” Ryan asked.

“Brakes
jammed and the valves stuck. Heat welding I bet. Then something weak broke.
That sucked.” He shook his head.

“You
dang fool! I told you to brake at the half way point!” Max said coming over and
throwing his hands up. “A fucking month of work down the toilet no thanks to
you and your damn joy riding!”

Scooter
swelled and then sighed. “Sorry Max, I forgot the valves were sticky like you
said,” he said looking down. Max visibly cooled after a moment, scuffing at the
rocks around them.

“At
least he wasn't killed and no one was hurt,” Wanda said. That seemed to take
some of the excess steam out of the machinist.

“Damn,
I shoulda done it,” he finally sighed, running his hands through his hair.

“Well,
you ain't getting me on one of those! That's for sure!” Wanda said smothering a
laugh. Both men glared.

“It's
not for passengers. It's for... oh never mind!” Max sighed. He turned to see
the apprentices looking glum. A few were trying to right the vehicle. “LEAVE
it, let it cool off!” he called waving to them.

“So
what were you planning on using then?” Wanda asked.

“Electric,”
Max said. Scooter nodded.

“See
most modern trains, hell even a lot of mining equipment use electric. Big,
giant electric motors. The diesel is for the generators to power the motors.”

“Ah,”
Wanda nodded. “Makes sense.”

“It
does. With a distributed network of motors under every other car we can build
and run a train more efficiently while using smaller cheaper engines... which
are easier to make anyway...and use less power.”

“Ah,”
she said dryly. “Get that out of a book?” she asked, lips parting in a slight
smile.

“No,
I remembered it,” Ryans answered. She looked at him. “Bullet trains use that
method. That way they don't pay a penalty when they move up a grade or when
they need to brake.”

“Ah.
Well, boys and their toys I guess.” She shrugged looking over her shoulder to
the mess. “What's left of them.”

“Cute,”
Max growled. “We'll have the electric one up as soon as we can. We've got
casting problems with the engine block still... we keep running into cracks.
Once we get that licked we can move on to other bottlenecks.”

“I
told you that we should have just done batteries,” Ryans sighed.

Wanda
and Max were shaking their heads.

“First
the acid's a pain in the ass,” Wanda said.

“And
we've got to make the electricity and transport it to where it needs to be,”
Max said giving Wanda a look. She nodded. “The generators are the only way to
do it. Same as what we've got now, so that once we get the logistics sorted we
can keep things rolling.”

“Thought
it used diesel? Where are you going to get it? I don't see any 7-11's around
you know,” Wanda said dryly.

“Don't
need one. One of the benefits of being on an alien world is that it has some
mighty wild plants and animals. One of the plants is some sort of oily thing.
Mary ran into it, said the natives call it phoenix weed. Sucker oozes sap which
when cleaned and reduced is a damn good veggie oil... so we can use that. Cut
it with some methanol and lye and we've got biodiesel.”

“And
environmentally friendly. How about that,” Wanda murmured. She remembered now,
someone, maybe Nate had waxed poetic about it at a dinner a month or so ago.
She turned to Ryans and then to Max. “So that's why you wanted the lye.”

“Yup,”
Max smiled. He'd put in a big order of phoenix oil and lye. They had a lot of
oil left over from the war effort that he was re-purposing for the trains and
other things now. “And even the waste is used.” He opened his mouth but she
held up her hand.

She
nodded. “Glycerin. Yeah, I'm the chemist remember?” She nodded. “Used in soap
and a thousand and one applications. Now I know why Charlie was lecturing her
class about it the other day. Cute. Methanol is a pain in the ass though.”

“Yup,
that's the bottleneck I mentioned.” Max sighed. Scooter nodded.

“Well,
we'll figure it out. Even if I have to do some old fashioned wood cracking and
distilling...“ she thought out loud rubbing her chin. “Why not use the
ethylene?” she asked.

“Cause
it's a pain in the ass to make. Energy intensive. It's exothermic but it takes
a lot of energy to make it, and even more to process it...and that doesn't even
include getting the carbon monoxide!” Max said throwing his hands up in the
air. “You’re the damn chemist and you don't know that?” he demanded, rounding
on her. She blushed. He turned to Ryans. “Boss I know you were behind it, but I
wish you hadn't been.”

“It's
paid off for us. Try doing what we did with straight gas,” Ryans smiled.

Scooter
shuddered. “Yeah, right. The vehicles we've got are gas hogs. Five miles per
gallon is average remember?” He gave Max a look. Max grimaced and then nodded.
“Still, having that option available might be a good idea... at least as a
backup...” He wrapped his arm around Max's shoulder and they walked off talking.
The apprentices came over. Soon an animated discussion started.

“We'll
figure it out Wanda,” Ryans smiled to her, shaking his head. “Or at least they
will,” he said, nodding his chin to the two guys and their students. He
chuckled.

“If
they don't get themselves killed first,” she said, eying the wreckage and
chuckling with him.

  <==={}------------>

“Max,
why aren't you an engineer? You know all this crap backwards and forwards. I
mean, why just a machinist?" Scooter asked as they hauled parts back to
the garage. He'd tried talking to Max about this before but Max had always had
some excuse or they'd been interrupted by one thing or another going on around
them. It seemed something or someone always needed their undivided attention.

“And
just what's wrong with that? You’re a driver! 'Sides you’re a fair to middlin'
mechanic. You just suck at driving a locomotive.”

“Gee
thanks... I think,” Scooter said eying the machinist.

“Truth
is, I'm not all that fond of book crap. I hate paperwork, and don't get me
started on tests. I always screw them up. I know I know it, I can do it...” Max
held up his hands. “With these... but when it comes to putting it on paper or
on a screen...  it's just sucked out of me. I feel so stupid.” He
grimaced, looking away.

“Ah.
Test anxiety,” Scooter nodded. “My sister had it. You’re not as dumb as you
look... Well I take that back.” Max glared. Scooter held up his hands grinning
as Max brandished a fist. “Not as dumb as some of those hoity toities we've had
to put up with lording over us from time to time.”

Max
sniffed. “Right. 'Sides I like to get my hands dirty. Hell with dressing up in
a suit and playing kiss ass. That's for the birds! I'll play with a drill press
any ole day. The suits don't know what they're missin'.”

Scooter
grinned. “Yeah, there's that!” He chuckled in appreciation. “speaking of which,
I think that's the latest delivery of parts from Miyagi's foundry...” He turned
to see the pack
branack
coming in, loaded with boxes strapped to its
flanks. The kid leading the animal waved to them.

“Yup,
looks like it. Let's go see if we can get this done. Hopefully using that
weapons grade steel made the difference,” Max said wiping his hands on a rag.
“Once we've got this mess sorted out I've got to go check on the ma bell
project. We've got a wire company up and running now and I'm trying to get a
speaker built. Ryans was supposed to help me but he keeps getting yanked off to
play politician,” Max growled.

“Get'r
done!” Scooter said chuckling.

  <==={}------------>

“Um,
dumb question,” Wanda said, watching the clean up. Ryans grinned and opened his
mouth but Deidra poked him. He gave her a glower then turned back to Wanda.

She
snorted then shook her head. “See? Even
he
is trainable,” Deidra said
conspiratorially to Wanda. Her eyes twinkled as she turned back to him in time
to catch him as he shook a fist at her. He pretended to shake it out with his
best innocent expression on her face. She glowered, he knew he wasn't fooling
her but he had to put the effort in anyway, at least for appearances sake.

“What
were you thinking?” Deidra finally asked smiling politely to the chemist.

“Well,
I was wondering how you’re going to get people to let you lay the track. And
access roads and such.” She waved to the test track.

Deidra
looked up to Ryans who shrugged. He turned back to Wanda. “We had a session in
parliament about it a while ago. A bill was passed to buy up the land needed
for roads and track.”

“Oh.”
Wanda shrugged. “Could work. What about land speculators and hold outs?” Ryans
grimaced. “Oh let me guess. Feudal lands, kick them out at sword point?” She
shook her head looking a little grim. “Eminent domain?”

Deidra
blinked and then frowned. Ryans rested his hand on her shoulder. “No, not if we
can help it. We've come up with an incentive plan. We've blocked out where we
want the first three lines to go. Fortunately the tracks don't take up that
much room, about thirty meters of space across for both.”