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.Gods, manufacturing the damn framework was going to be abitch.The nonconductive material used in space wouldn't stand up to gravity.While steel could take the stress load, the amount of metal needed to make thegate would play havoc with the system.A good fit on the model drew her attention back to it.She locked the circledown."Let's see if this works."As Sparks read off the gird coordinates, she found the matching points on theworkshop floor and circled them in chalk."Is that it?" Riki asked with quiet awe.She snorted in disgust."That's the easy part.Of course if I make a mistakenow, we might not know until the last moment.Let me think on this for awhile.Get me a list of supplies that we have, and see if you can find somemore comfortable chairs."* * *She'd shifted the locations three times including rotating the gate half aturn as she considered factors from height clearance, use of the overheadcrane during construction, the ease of getting large materials into place, andfinally the local ley lines, faint as they might be.Riki reappeared with thematerials list and a surprising array of office chairs just as she wasspray-painting the final location onto the workshop floor.He also had a lunchof steamed fish, brown rice, and more pickles.She took the list and studied it as she ate.Again, she found the onidepressingly efficient, though noncreative; they had slavishly gathered whathad been used to build the orbital gate and nothing else."We need somethingfor the superstructure of the gate, something inert and nonmetallic.If wewere on Elfhome, I'd use ironwood.I don't suppose you have somethingsimilar?""Ironwood?""Yeah.""You want to use ironwood?"She flicked her pickles at him."Hello! That's what I said.I know youunderstand English, Mr.Born-and-raised in Berkeley.""It's just using wood is so low tech.""To quote you doh! From little minds come no solutions.Ironwood isPage 214ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlstunningly strong, renewable, non-toxic, recyclable, and easy to work with.Dothe oni have anything like it or not?""We can get ironwood."She waited for explanations but they weren't forthcoming."I'm talking massive timbers." She held out her hands to show the beam size.Riki nodded."Just tell me how much, and I'll get it.""Okay.We're in business then."* * *Time blurred for the rest of the day, as she designed the wood framework.Rikicame and went, searching out samples of the ceramic tiles and other materialsstockpiled elsewhere.Each item fired new ideas, and she branched out to howto affix the tiles, a ramp over the threshold to protect the gate, and apreliminary sketch of the power supply grid.Night fell, and shadows in the warehouse grew deeper.Chiyo brought dinnerand almost instantly the female and Riki started bickering in Oni.Tinkersighed, leaning back in her chair to look up through the skylight.Sheexpected the stars to be strange and unfamiliar, like the sky of Earth.FirstWolf, though, was right overhead, his shoulder star the brightest thing in thesky as always.It was comforting to see it, so very familiar.Then it struckher it was too familiar.She leaned from side to side to see more through theoverhead rectangle of Plexiglas, studying the constellations.The moonspinners.The dark-eyed widow.It was the sky of Elfhome overhead.And suddenly it was all clear to her.You have a prisoner, extremely intelligent, to whom you need to give greatfreedom and entrust with a great deal of material that could easily be twistedinto weapons.Wouldn't the simplest method of holding said prisoner be simplyto convince her that she is in another dimension? Even if she fled thebuilding, the whole world would act as a prison.Escape would seem impossible.She had to still be on Elfhome [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]