Part 74 (2/2)
They pa.s.sed through a seemingly endless series of small workrooms where components of the tau-generator were being a.s.sembled and tested. Aiken knew what was going on in every chamber and greeted the technicians and senior scientists and their North American supervisors by name. The laboratories were crowded and deceptively chaotic in appearance. Much of the a.s.sembly was being done under micromanipulators, and to the uninitiated observer it was rather unexciting. The chemical engineering rooms were slightly more dramatic, full of burbling gadgetry and elusive stenches as critical materials were cooked up, then sent on to the manufacturing units.
In one of the larger workrooms of this type, Tony Wayland accosted the King.
”I'll need at least three more diamonds,” he said, ”twelve carats or better. Also an industrial laser that can drill holes five to forty microns in diameter, a cerametal whisker grower, some Canada balsam or an equivalent syn-resin, another bottle of argon, and a new room-mate. That miserable Hewitt snores like a sawmill.”
”Anything else?” enquired the King mildly.
”Some news about my wife!”
”Lady Katlinel is making inquiries. There's some problem.
Your Howler in-laws are a bit miffed that you ran out on their little girl, and are disinclined to cooperate. Lady Katy counsels patience.”
Tony threw up his hands and stomped away. The King and Elizabeth moved on. When they were safely in the next room, she said, ”My redactive faculty detects a whiff of level-two dysfunction in that man's psyche. I gather he's been through some rough times. I shouldn't let him get too highly stressed if I were you.”
”He wants to work,” Aiken said. ”That's the best thing for him now. It'll distract him from this business about his Howler wife.”
”I'd be glad to have Minanonn fly me to Nionel. Perhaps I could mediate with the irate parents-in-law.”
”Thanks, Elizabeth.” Aiken was glum. ”But I lied to poor Tony back there-partly for selfish reasons and partly because it seems the kindest thing to do at this point. You know Lord Greg-Donnet, who was King Thagdal's Genetics Master?”
”The one they called Crazy Greggy ... ” She nodded.
”He went to Nionel with Katy when she married Sugoll, and now he's pottering about with a scheme for alleviating the deformities of the mutants. Talented man, Greggy, in spite of his little quirks. Well-it seems he worked up an experimental thingummy, a sort of cross between the healing Tanu Skin and a Milieu-style regeneration tank. He thinks this Skin-tank might help restore the really grotesque Howlers to a more normal Firvulag appearance. He asked for a volunteer. Guess who he got.”
”Oh, dear,” said Elizabeth.
The King said, ”Tony's wife, Rowane, thought he dumped her because she was a monster. Greggy's experiment looked like a golden opportunity to her. So there she floats, switch-off, for at least another four weeks, while Greggy and the Howler equivalent of redactors remould her protoplasm. Rowane might come out worse than before, she might die, or the experiment could be a great success. But I think we're wise to stall Tony.”
”I agree. It's pathetic ... ”
”Aren't we all?” said the King. He led the way into a sizeable chamber where a skeletal gla.s.s structure stood upon a platform.
It was a latticed box strung about with metallic cables that intertwined its vitreous members like multicoloured vine stems.
Many more of the flexible lines lay about on workbenches with their innards exposed to the probing attention of the workers.
Monitors, testing equipment, and a confusion of installation machinery crowded the platform.
”And there it is,” Aiken announced. ”The Guderian device-more or less.”
”I hadn't remembered it being so large,” Elizabeth said.
”We expanded it a trifle. Our tame dynamic-field boffin, Anastos, said it wouldn't hurt. That's him cursing out the fleck installer. The scrawny dark-haired bareneck. And of course you recognize the disapproving duo looking over his shoulder.”
”I've fa.r.s.een them. Is there some place we could speak in private?”
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