Read Online Trade World Saga 1: Manual Interpretation by Ken Pence - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ken Pence
Tags: Fiction, Science-Fiction, adventure, Action & Adventure, Fiction - Science Fiction, Space Opera, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Young Adult Fiction, Science Fiction - Adventure
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Andrew square in the eyes and gave his hand a long squeeze, with her other hand firmly holding the back of his upper arm.
Andrew smiled deeply and turned back to the rest as he gave out specs and further assignments. They were busily discussing plans and designs for several minutes when Susan interrupted the discussion.
Steve chimed in, "How do you plan to fund all these other little undertakings?"
"Well, right now the university thinks we're working on an independent power system for isolated communities. They think we've designed a system to make sections of the Earth habitable that are now arid. Realize there is a lack of people and funding to maintain the aging electrical grids with the freak weather we’ve had the past decade. No region wants to pay for the infrastructure upkeep. That’s why our power supplies are coming at the right moment in time. The university thinks this will be a little piece of the energy production like ethanol or wave power. Our power supplies are easily scaled up, the catalyst is readily available and the deuterium can be easily supplied. No one will want fossil fuel powered energy. When companies find out they can get energy whenever they want without being held hostage to a fixed, unreliable infrastructure, they will move and slash connections to the grid as soon as they find out it is cheaper and more reliable. The university thinks we will produce small, reliable prototypes and that’s all they think.
We are going to keep them thinking that line until I've completed the field projector and most the bugs are worked out," Andrew stated. "They don't have any idea the power generators can be tiny with huge output and we'll keep them thinking small prototypes...for a while. The university administration doesn’t know they will have control taken away from them when this disruptive technology hits the commercial market. They'll still make money and get prestige no matter what we do with half of what we are developing. It's a fair trade."
"But how will that get the project funded? They'll cut you off the minute you even look toward the stars, much less talk of going to them," Steve continued. "Hell. Half us think you're nuts." He saw the frowns around him on several faces. "Yeah, yeah. It is fun." He paused, "Yeah Desiree. I remember our oath though I don't think I'd mind if you kicked my butt and talked dirty to me. Oh come on. I'm just saying what most of you are thinking."
Andrew didn't let it get out of hand. "You're right Steve, if we were simply asking the University for funding and assistance. Once the power supply design is completed, we will have the bargaining power. Then we'll reveal our plans for the ship and refuse to release any of the power supply plans 'til they have given us a written guarantee of funding and support. We will turn over majority production rights to the power supply to the university at the completion of the project. That had us sign some boilerplate legal that says just like that but the money from the project is set up to mostly fund what we want to do. There is money for travel and food and miscellaneous. They weren’t stingy so we’re pretty well funded."
"I'm not sure about this...I see tons of obstacles," Steve said.
"Do you think for one minute that they would let us develop anything if they knew what we had? We'd be replaced with a think tank, muckety muck firm in a nanosecond. Hell. We wouldn't even be able to see what the others were working on. Everything would be classified ten times. Steve. I don't need problem identifiers. The whole planet has those up the ass. I need problem solvers. That's what we're supposed to be."
"Well...What if they turn us down and try to steal the plans," Steve queried.
"We'll simply be prepared to offer the same package to other neighboring universities. We can FTP encrypted plans to secure servers all over the dataNet. I don't want to do that unless we have to since we run up against some old technology
Andrew smiled deeply and turned back to the rest as he gave out specs and further assignments. They were busily discussing plans and designs for several minutes when Susan interrupted the discussion.
Steve chimed in, "How do you plan to fund all these other little undertakings?"
"Well, right now the university thinks we're working on an independent power system for isolated communities. They think we've designed a system to make sections of the Earth habitable that are now arid. Realize there is a lack of people and funding to maintain the aging electrical grids with the freak weather we’ve had the past decade. No region wants to pay for the infrastructure upkeep. That’s why our power supplies are coming at the right moment in time. The university thinks this will be a little piece of the energy production like ethanol or wave power. Our power supplies are easily scaled up, the catalyst is readily available and the deuterium can be easily supplied. No one will want fossil fuel powered energy. When companies find out they can get energy whenever they want without being held hostage to a fixed, unreliable infrastructure, they will move and slash connections to the grid as soon as they find out it is cheaper and more reliable. The university thinks we will produce small, reliable prototypes and that’s all they think.
We are going to keep them thinking that line until I've completed the field projector and most the bugs are worked out," Andrew stated. "They don't have any idea the power generators can be tiny with huge output and we'll keep them thinking small prototypes...for a while. The university administration doesn’t know they will have control taken away from them when this disruptive technology hits the commercial market. They'll still make money and get prestige no matter what we do with half of what we are developing. It's a fair trade."
"But how will that get the project funded? They'll cut you off the minute you even look toward the stars, much less talk of going to them," Steve continued. "Hell. Half us think you're nuts." He saw the frowns around him on several faces. "Yeah, yeah. It is fun." He paused, "Yeah Desiree. I remember our oath though I don't think I'd mind if you kicked my butt and talked dirty to me. Oh come on. I'm just saying what most of you are thinking."
Andrew didn't let it get out of hand. "You're right Steve, if we were simply asking the University for funding and assistance. Once the power supply design is completed, we will have the bargaining power. Then we'll reveal our plans for the ship and refuse to release any of the power supply plans 'til they have given us a written guarantee of funding and support. We will turn over majority production rights to the power supply to the university at the completion of the project. That had us sign some boilerplate legal that says just like that but the money from the project is set up to mostly fund what we want to do. There is money for travel and food and miscellaneous. They weren’t stingy so we’re pretty well funded."
"I'm not sure about this...I see tons of obstacles," Steve said.
"Do you think for one minute that they would let us develop anything if they knew what we had? We'd be replaced with a think tank, muckety muck firm in a nanosecond. Hell. We wouldn't even be able to see what the others were working on. Everything would be classified ten times. Steve. I don't need problem identifiers. The whole planet has those up the ass. I need problem solvers. That's what we're supposed to be."
"Well...What if they turn us down and try to steal the plans," Steve queried.
"We'll simply be prepared to offer the same package to other neighboring universities. We can FTP encrypted plans to secure servers all over the dataNet. I don't want to do that unless we have to since we run up against some old technology
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