[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.”“Oh.Right.” Evanna felt her cheeks growing warm.“Sorry.”Her assistant sighed and rolled her eyes.“It’s all right.You have a lot on your mind.You’re in charge of a lot of projects, most of which are of importance to the Terran military.You don’t have time for social niceties.The work is what is important.”Normally, Evanna would have taken comfort in those frequently repeated words.She was important to the ceramics industry, and she did create superior armor plating for the ships of the Terran United Planets Space Force.Lives literally depended on her work, and she took pride in her careful considerations.But the way Amanda rolled her eyes and the stiff, rote tone in her voice spoke more of impatience with such things.Like maybe she doesn’t think this project is important? That’s not like her, but what else could it be? Evanna narrowed her eyes.“Are you belittling the work we’re doing? We are in the business of saving lives, you know.”Amanda met her gaze straight on, her impatience replaced with sobriety.“My brother is serving on board a TUPSF-Navy starship, remember? I know we’re in the business of saving others’ lives.But I think you should take a look at your own life, too.”That made no sense.Evanna frowned again.“What do you mean by that?”The other woman flicked her gaze briefly up at the corner of the room, to the black bubble on the ceiling that housed the security camera.“Nothing.Nothing at all.The courier needs your thumbprint scan to unlock the canister of bismuth, Doctor.He’s waiting in the upper conference room.”“Not the lower one?” Evanna asked.The upper conference room, with its bay windows overlooking the craters of Clavius sitting below the installation and the upside-down visage of the Earth hanging in the sky overhead, was usually reserved for visiting dignitaries.Even if the new isotope held the potential for promise, delivery personnel were usually shown to an interior conference room, one which was closer to the docking hangar.She herself didn’t visit it as often as she would have liked, but then she was often preoccupied with her work.“He insisted on waiting in a room with a view.” Stepping back, Amanda gave her space to exit the holographic lab.As she walked along the clean white and pale gray corridors of the institute, Evanna focused her thoughts on the isotope sample she had ordered.If Dr.Farberjiin’s calculations are correct on the heightened diamagnetic properties of the isotope when combined in his experimental compound, it could be possible to mitigate the impact of incoming projectile attacks.The only problem will be synthesizing sufficiently large enough quantities for practical applications in military hull plating, never mind the civilian sector.Of course, bismuth isn’t the only diamagnetic element, she acknowledged, silently cataloguing substitute materials as she and Amanda rode the nearest lift to the upper levels of the complex.Dmitrium has four times the opposing polarity qualities, albeit with a half-life of a fraction of a second, which makes using the 115th element highly impractical.And bismuth has a certain thermic sensitivity, making it difficult to incorporate into the ceristeel matrix during the manufacturing process.Which means I’d need to come up with a mineral additive to bind and stabilize it with so it would not be affected by temperature or time.Maybe if I bound the isotopic compound within nanocages and injected it into the foam as it cools during the annealing process? That could work if I picked the right matrice for the cage, though I may have to figure out how to activate the compound without requiring that it be a catalyst, Evanna thought, picturing it in her head half as clearly as the holographics programs in her workroom could project it.The lab required several terahertz of computational matrices to calculate molecular changes on both the micro- and macro-scales, but it required the spark of an idea to combine the right materials in the right patterns.But I still don’t have a solution for the shearing potential.And I’d have to have some means of regulating the placement of the isotope in its copper cages.Wait.copper?Copper was the color of the courier’s clothes.She was supposed to be thinking about carbon, not copper, but the moment she entered the conference room, it was hard to think about anything else.Not when he wore tight-fitted leather pants that looked like they had been dipped in liquified copper and a sleeveless tank shirt which looked like the remaining metallic paint had been poured down his shoulders and chest.His muscular, lean chest.Evanna couldn’t remember when she had last seen a body that well defined.Everyone at the Lunar Ceramics Institute kept themselves in good shape, of course; despite the acquisition of artificial gravity technology fifty years before, allowing comfortable, normal-gravitied life, it was still imperative that anyone living in space exercise to ensure optimum health and motility.But no one exercised so hard that even their minor muscle groups could be discerned and identified at a glance.Usually, they had too much work to do to waste their time on such frivolous pursuits [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]