TGoaW-127

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==Chapter 127 - The Glow of a Worm inside a Child's Eye==
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"I'm not going back...
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...into the box, Patrick. Live with it." Her hostage situation was into the second day. Really, it wasn't much of a hostage situation-Baroness Elizabeth's placing a warship in the middle of the largest yard facility didn't come with overt threats to the crews, yards, or product. It did come with the suggested threat that anything big enough to pierce the hull of the Tabiranth would cause unacceptable casualties, and create massive delays in ongoing construction programs.
Subtler methods, like a Commando raid, were outright canceled by the presence of trained personnel on her side-veterans of the Guard's marine program. An automated warship with networked drones, and locked doors.
<<"You didn't have to go this far, Liz.">>
"Didn't I?" she regarded her brother on the screen. "Let's go over this, shall we? I've been 'two weeks' from release since I was eighteen and I'm Twenty One now. I'm legally an adult, and I'm making an adult choice now. I'm done being a guinea-pig. I'll live with a weakened immune system and an uncertain cure. it's not like we don't have centuries of pharmaceuticals designed to boost or at times, replace portions of the human immune system!" she glared. "I'm done with it Patrick. I'm an adult now, and I let myself out, now you can either accept that, and we can work forward, or there's going to be problems between us."
His image flickered, as the ducal Dropship entered a closer orbit. <<"Alright Elizabeth...what do you have in mind that you couldn't do in the treatment facility-we GAVE you a full office!">>
"I can drive a Starship." she said, "Also, I can travel, and do my damned job...and I have a piece of 'big science' that I want to be there to oversee. That means I can't be in a box, big brother, since I don't want to share it with foreigners...at least, not yet. If it works, we need to have the leg up on them."
<<"How big a science?">>
"I need the fourth moon orbiting Snark." she asserted, "And six hundred seventy seven point nine billion Kroner."
His jaw dropped. <<"That much?">>
"For the basic model. The deluxe version will probably price out around a cool Trillion."
<<"For what??">>
"Testing a solution to Kearney's nineteenth postulate." she said. "The HPG data squared some gaps away, and I think I figured out what the lost postulate was...and if it works. Pat, we'll revolutionize travel on a scale you've never imagined...but it requires some things that are pretty rare to even test it."
<<"Like what?">>
"Around a thousand kilograms of antimatter. To make that much, we need a facility, it needs to be off the main routes, and it needs to be large, both to produce the stuff, and to produce the fullerene needed to contain it in a usable form...which I think I can manage, if the real world comes within a reasonable percentage of the math...which is why I don't want to share it with foreigners-the damned catalyst is going to be useful as munitions filler and more powerful than anything anyone else has the tech to make."
<<"How much facility are you talking about???">>
"Cyclotron wrapped around a moon." she said firmly, "Also a core forge, because what it's going to be powering will need to be based on forged jump core tech, managed by an advanced computer that I think we can finally build."
<<"Christ, Lizzie...wait...the Nineteenth Theorem...Great Aunt Mai's idea?">>
"One of them." Liz agreed, "She couldn't get their father to fund it, and grandpa Dinh's trip to prison killed the project...which wasn't ready anyway, if what I think I figured out is true. I also want to get started on an Alcubierre project-if we can get an Alcubierre warp proven and working, it'll make a lot more sense than the ferries on the in-system routes...and the antimatter's going to be useful there, too, as a catalyst for generating the exotic matter needed to make it feasible."
<<"Mad Science.">> he scoffed.
"Yep. I had a LOT of time between months of agony to think about it...and I needed something to keep me sane while Doctor Mengele was giving me new definitions of pain and discomfort."
<<"The Scientist's labname was 'Hofmann'...">> he said weakly.
"I don't care, You weren't there. She'll always be Mengele to me, until I can think of something worse to call her."
<<"If I agree, will you please take the warship out of the shipyard and...">>
"Sure." she said, "I'll do that. do you agree?"
<<"We'll need to free up funding and finances...">>
"Oh, good, you can do that while I'm going to Tharkad."
<<"Wha-?">>
"Swearing in." she emphasized. "Dotting I's and Crossing Tees, I have to swear in to the Archon-Prince or I don't have leverage. I should just about be on time, too."
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127