Pillar to the Sky Read online

  “Eva?” Gary asked, looking at his wife, who just stood there smiling.

  “Save it for when she is home on vacation; she can tell us all about it then,” she said, then laughed and gave him another kiss.

  “I’m not sure about this,” he said.

  “No father is when it comes to his baby girl,” Eva laughed. “My father wanted to fly to America just to ‘check you out,’ as he put it in a less-than-friendly tone when I first told him about you.”

  “You were twenty-two then; our girl just turned seventeen.”

  “Kids grow up faster now,” was all she said in reply; then, letting go of his hand, she waved toward the Gulfstream.

  He could see McMullen standing on the steps of the plane, looking their way while blocking entry to the crowd gathered around, Smith having already boarded.

  Victoria’s flight instructor, Brandon, was trying to do crowd control, shouting for the group to get a hundred feet back from the plane so it could start engines. As Gary and Eva reached the stairs, Danny extended a helping hand.

  “We just got word that the college president is coming here, along with some congressmen, and we want to get wheels up now, otherwise we’ll be stuck here for hours.”

  They gained the top of the stairs and Gary looked back. Victoria was pushing her way through the crowd. Danny reached out to grab her hand and pull her up the steps.

  There were more than a few comments at the sight of her getting on the plane. Only a very few knew her connection to Franklin via her parents. The seventeen-year-old in her did come out, though, and playing a bit of a role she turned, bowed, and blew a kiss to Peter, which was greeted with more than a few comments Gary did not quite appreciate before ducking down and entering the cabin. Gary hoped that Franklin’s offer to take her along for the rest of the weekend did not trigger any reactions, especially jealousy on the part of some professors, but it was too late to debate that now as Brandon shouted to McMullen to close the hatch and that he’d handle clearing the area around the plane.

  Smith was already strapped in and jotting some notes on his iPad but folded it over as the three headed aft.

  “Mr. Smith,” Victoria bubbled, “thank you for inviting me along.”

  “Figured since you’ll be my intern next summer, it’s a chance for us to get to know each other. Besides, something in our schedule changed and I thought you might enjoy that, and just spending time with your parents as well.”

  “Again, thank you,” she said, and actually leaned over to hug him.

  “We’re cleared for engine start-up,” Danny said over the intercom. “Please take your seats and let’s get out of here before the college president, the congressmen, and Lord knows who else show up.”

  The three did as ordered in the aft section, Victoria happily settling in beside her father while her mother did the same on his other side. She snuggled against him and took his hand. Nothing more was said about the news they had just broken to her, but it was obvious she was dealing with a flood of emotions.

  They could hear Danny, up in the cockpit, side window open, shouting for everyone to please stand clear, and the distant voice of Brandon replying. Seconds later, the port-side engine started up.

  8

  It turned out that the meeting with the real estate agent out in Denver for lunch was merely a side trip. Franklin did not come away with the hundred million he had hoped for but did get an investment of fifty million. As they reboarded the plane, Smith mused that at fifty million a day, in a thousand days he would have the rest. To Victoria’s delight, while Franklin was having his lunch meeting, there was enough time for the three of them to take a quick stop at a nearby mall and hurriedly pick up a change of clothes and the usual necessities no seventeen-year-old woman would think of not having with her for a weekend trip. She at least had her flight bag and more than once pulled out her log book and just sat and gazed at the entry by her instructor authorizing her for solo flight.

  After Denver, the next stop was out to a remote airfield in New Mexico. It was headquarters now to a legendary aircraft designer and a billionaire friend from England who were successfully running a suborbital launch business and already hard at work on orbital manned launches as a commercial concern. At the moment, they were losing money hand over fist, but that did not deter them; as Franklin said of them more than once, these two beyond everything else were having a good time.

  Gary had met both before and was still somewhat in awe of the circles he was traveling in of late. The two greeted him and Eva warmly as they disembarked from the Gulfstream. They were led straight to a Hummer taking them out to the hangar complex. The driver swung wide and slowed for a moment as they approached the launch vehicle, its wingspan nearly that of a 747, with the suborbital spacecraft nicknamed “Enterprise” slung between the twin-fuselage “mother ship.”

  “We have a launch later this afternoon; the passengers are going through their final prep over in that hangar,” their British host said, and nodded to the massive hangar that housed the vehicle. “Going to give them a sunset launch; they’ll have the sun to the west as they climb out, turning east across the demarcation line, at which point the sky will explode with stars. At sixty miles up, they’ll have a view over six hundred miles out in every direction, well past Dallas, which will be in darkness and lit up.

  “They’ll catch moonrise at apogee at nearly seventy miles up, and then back down. We find our passengers really like that one.”

  Rather than stop they continued on, heading to a low, squat building that was obviously newly constructed, raw earth still plowed up into piles around it. It covered more than four acres, with low arcing roof studded with solar panel arrays to take advantage of the plentiful energy available, at least out here in the high desert of central New Mexico. They’d be a joke if installed in Seattle.

  Pulling up to a side door, Franklin and their hosts got out first. The three were talking softly, and Gary suddenly felt a bit out of place as their driver opened their door and with a smiling gesture indicated he, Eva, and Victoria should follow. It was far warmer on this sunny day than the Seattle climate he had gotten used to in recent months and Gary was grateful for the blast of cold air that greeted them once they were in the building. It was actually a vast shed, most of it empty, but scores of men and women were at work erecting smaller structures under the high roof. Franklin and the other two had not slowed their pace, heading for a white-walled building to one side of the vast enclosed complex, disappearing within. Gary, Eva, and Victoria followed. Once through the first doorway Gary felt the pressure change in the air. They were inside an overpressured airlock.

  It was reassuring, and he relaxed a bit. They were going into an airtight lab, the air pressure inside kept higher than outside to prevent dust from seeping in, and out in this desert there was certainly enough dust. He could see Franklin and their hosts through the next glass door, a white-suited tech sweeping them with a vacuum cleaner, paying particular attention to their hair and feet. Gary, Eva, and Victoria followed, and Franklin, as if remembering that the three existed, smiled and said it was time to strip down. A female tech pointed the ladies to a side room while the men stayed behind and removed shirts, trousers, shoes, and socks, which were sealed up in white duffel bags, and then donned white coveralls.

  Gary was impressed. In nearly all the clean rooms in Goddard, you just simply slipped on the coveralls over your street clothes. This place was well up in the stratosphere as far as not taking any chances that a stray particle of dust was dragged in, following procedures that existed in only a few score other clean rooms around the world. Forced air was coming out of long louvered vents in the ceiling and being sucked into the grating in the floor. The lab was most likely clean down to a fraction of a micron. They donned hairnets with hoods over them, goggles, and, for this place, even respirators; then they donned gloves and oversize white slippers, a tech helping with the drawstrings. Not a square inch of bare skin was exposed when the tech gave
him a final sweep with the vacuum cleaner.

  The four men and their guardian of the clean room waited politely, saying nothing, not even making small talk, as they waited as Eva and Victoria emerged in their “bunny suits.” Gary always smiled at the sight of Eva in a clean room outfit and the big “Mickey Mouse” shoes covering her feet. It was the first time Victoria had been decked out, and underneath her mask and goggles he guessed she was grinning, nearly out of her head with excitement. He could see her eyes were crinkled up with delight.

  “I must say, you look fetching, Dr. Petrenko, and so do you, Miss Morgan,” the Brit said, and pointed to the third door, this one solid metal. Their guide punched in a code to open it up, the pressure in this inner lab area higher than in the outside prep room, causing their ears to pop. Within it looked for all the world like nearly any clean room lab. The brilliant light, the steady hum of air filters at full blast, techs at work at various tasks, except for a small crowd gathered around a glass-walled chamber, obviously expecting the visitors. The air was dry and crisp, the temperature set at the low sixties.

  The Brit and the aircraft designer, voices a bit muffled by the face mask respirators, exchanged greetings with and then made formal introduction to a tall slender person in baggy white coveralls. It was hard to figure out if it was a man or a woman, let alone his or her ethnicity, until Gary saw the ID tag on the man’s white suit.

  “My friends, it is my pleasure to introduce Dr. Fuchida, who will oversee this little demonstration.”

  My God, Gary thought, even as he extended his hand. Protocol in such a high-level lab meant that shaking hands was frowned upon, but he could not help himself.

  For years this man had haunted him. He was the competition. Eva could barely contain her delight, because this man was her fulfillment. It was his team, twenty years earlier, that had led the world in carbon nanotube research.

  Gary looked at Franklin, who actually winked at him, and he almost blurted out the question of how much did it cost to bring this man under his sway and how long had he been working here out in New Mexico. Fuchida had not published in several years, and the rumor was that, when funding dried up in his home country due to their flatlined economy, he had gone into a quiet but frustrated retirement, location unknown. Some even said he had gone over to the Chinese for a capitalistic sum that far exceeded the cost of an entire American baseball team. And Franklin most likely had him here all along.

  Fuchida touched Gary’s hand for a brief instant and then offered a traditional bow, which Gary returned.

  “I am honored and humbled to meet the two of you. I wish you to know that for years I have followed your research and publications with keen interest.”

  He turned to Eva and bowed.

  “And I thank you, madam, for your article published eight years ago, expressing belief in my work.”

  Gary nearly burst out laughing. It had actually been an article in a popular magazine blasting the American research community because “our side” was lagging behind in carbon nanotube development, and without doubt Fuchida and company would take the final steps in this field—and if their country did not exploit it, the Chinese would. It was her article that helped to trigger the rumor about Fuchida going to China when his research lab folded up without warning and he disappeared. In this high-level world of research, a leader does not simply disappear to go fish off some dock or go metal detecting on a beach while wearing Bermuda shorts and black socks. Someone had him at work somewhere, and now the mystery was solved.

  Eva’s features were all but concealed, but Gary could tell she was a bit embarrassed.

  “And so now we are here together,” Fuchida said graciously, “all on the same team.”

  As he spoke, he gestured to the enclosed chamber they were standing next to, its glass windows several inches thick.

  “Dr. Fuchida,” the Brit said, “I think we are ready for this long-anticipated demonstration.”

  Perhaps the Brit’s interruption of the exchange of greetings was slightly rude, but the enthusiasm in his voice was almost like that of a boy screaming, I wanna see it!

  Fuchida nodded and pointed to the chamber.

  “We have two strands of carbon-60 nanotubing within the chamber,” he proudly announced. “One strand is two meters in length.”

  “Two meters,” Eva gasped.

  Gary could sense Fuchida’s smile beneath the face mask as he nodded.

  “Bozhe miĭ!” Eva exclaimed in Ukrainian. “When did you get beyond the millimeter stage?”

  “Oh, about six months ago,” Franklin replied offhandedly.

  “And you didn’t tell us?” Gary asked, half good-naturedly, but with a touch of hurt as well.

  “Recall that was just about the same time I brought you two on board. Regardless, you do know now.”

  The implication, though it did sting a bit, was obvious. No matter how he felt their friendship had evolved, Franklin did keep some cards close to his vest and separated as well. Of course, it was how he made his billions.

  “Come on,” the aircraft designer announced, “let’s see it.”

  “Well, there it is,” Fuchida said, pointing to the chamber. Everyone leaned forward to the view ports. They saw two claw-like clamps separated about two meters apart, and behind them two large steel cylinders separated by a few centimeters, and empty space in between. Nothing else could be seen. It reminded Gary of the hoodwink of a supposed flea circus when he was a kid, a few miniature carnival rides spinning around, the barker claiming fleas were on board.

  It was disappointing but Gary knew what was coming.

  “A single thread,” Fuchida quickly said, “as we are now mastering manufacturing of for significant lengths. If our computer projections are correct we’ll quickly have strands of any length that are two millimeters wide.”

  “How quickly?” Franklin asked.

  “Give me six months for 0.2 and six months more for our goal of 2 millimeters at the length you desire, if all goes well today.”

  “I don’t see a bloody thing,” the Brit said, but it was obvious his question was rhetorical. He had, without doubt, along with his aviation designer friend, been hovering around this lab since it was built.

  “It is, of course, invisible to the naked eye, though I do have microscopes which you can watch through and cameras operating at a thousand frames a second recording the test when we start,” Fuchida pointed out. “Behind it, between the two pistons, with a clearance of 1.5 centimeters between them, there is a woven mesh of fifty such strands. At such scales, I must say it was difficult to weave and is less than ten millimeters in length, but it is sufficient for the second test.”

  “You’re going for tensile and compression, aren’t you?” Eva asked excitedly.

  “Exactly.”

  “Then let’s do it,” the Brit announced. “Push the button.”

  Fuchida turned to Eva.

  “Doctor, would you do me the honor, since we are on the same team now, of pushing that button?”

  “I would not think of taking that away from you, sir,” she said.

  He laughed softly.

  “Don’t you think I already did it before you got here?”

  Gary did laugh out loud at that. Of course Fuchida and his team would have made sure of it, rather than suffer the humiliation of a failure in front of their funding source, and Franklin was indeed not all he seemed to be if he did not know that as well; he had most likely checked ahead before even flying in.

  There actually was a red button on a control panel that Fuchida pointed to, and, delighted, Eva made a dramatic display of depressing it. The two claw-like pistons began to move ever so slightly. Even though he had most likely tested this dozens of times, Fuchida kept a careful eye on the computer readouts and motioned for them to come and look over his shoulder.

  “Those two pistons are being driven by a hydraulic compressor which is exerting over a hundred kilograms of outward pressure on that one thread one-tenth the
diameter of a human hair to try to pull it apart.”

  Gary wondered for a moment, if the thread broke, what the kinetic energy would be as it flew apart and if the glass wall would be shattered.

  “This exceeds by nearly 50 percent the anticipated outward load on a pillar. If you went in there right now and simply tried to wave your hand between the two pistons, though invisible to the naked eye, that strand is thousands of times sharper than a samurai sword; you would with ease slice your fingers or hand off on it and barely feel it at first as your fingers fell to the floor. Actually, rather dangerous stuff when this slender. I’ll be glad when we move up to the visible range, as you know or maybe heard rumors that we have had several accidents.”

  There had been “talk” some years back of a careless tech in Japan, acting on his own before the project director could stop him, who had gone into a chamber after a test strand had shattered during a test like this one and part of a strand spinning through the air had neatly cut his jugular. He had bled out within the chamber. The project director, most likely Fuchida, ordered the door to be kept sealed and no one to venture in. It must have been a horrific few minutes watching a coworker die like that. The broken strands of carbon nanotube, at such a microscopic diameter, were impossible to see with the naked eye, weighing less than a mote of dust on the wind; if one came into contact with human flesh with sufficient velocity, it would just slice through; if inhaled, even through a respirator, it would pierce the respirator filters, then wreak havoc in the victim’s lungs. As a precaution, the room had to be sealed off, the body still inside, because it was feared that the invisible strands would escape by piercing through the layers of air filters and go into the atmosphere. Fuchida, if he was indeed the project leader, ordered the filters shut down and the entire lab, worth tens of millions, shut down and encased in reinforced concrete. If true, it was most likely what killed the Japanese funding for his project.

  It must have been a surreal funeral service outside that lab, Gary thought as he continued to gaze at the two pistons, wondering how they were designed to actually grasp and hold the microscopic thread while testing it.