A Sword Into Darkness
“Emil Korso. Nathan looked back at him with a grin and tossed the beam up, catching it with ease. He flipped it over, examining its length closely. The surface was rippled, striated, and gleamed with a dull gray sheen. Nathan set the structural member down and turned back to Korso. “It’s everything you promised. And so light!”“Foamed alloy of aluminum, molybdenum, titanium, and a dozen other trace elements, encasing a three dimensional weave of graphene and carbon nanotubes—one fiftieth th...e density of steel, and over a hundred times its structural strength per unit volume. And that doesn’t include the shear strength, which is so far off the charts, we had to come up with a new chart. I have the full specifications available if you, Mr. Lee, or your materials staff would like to examine them.”“Absolutely. How’s the performance of test units under environmental test conditions? Shake it, bake it, freeze it, and nuke it? How does it hold together then?”“Well, we haven’t been able to test full-sized mock-ups in every condition. We simply don’t have a freezer,kiln, or radiation chamber quite big enough. If the low end tests we’ve done are directly scaleable, though, it looks promising. Thermal properties are as expected and it’s withstood neutron embrittlement very well, in addition to a full gamma series. We’re going to need more time for better data, though.”“Sure, sure. That’s understandable. I’ll tell you what, Doctor, flash me the specs and we’ll have our own testers do some independent validation and verification, but I doubt there will be any problems. We’ve been following Allied pretty closely. Out of all of our research projects, this one has been the biggest outright success.”Korso smiled sheepishly and smoothed nonexistent wrinkles from his suit coat. “It pleases me to hear you say that, Nathan. We never could have expanded the way we did without Windward’s patronage, and we might have even closed down. As it is now, once we’ve fulfilled our contract with you we’ll be able to start marketing Allocarbium to the world. I foresee a very lucrative future in naval and aviation circles.” There was a new, greedy look in the scientist’s usually unassuming expression.Nathan shook his head slightly at that. “No doubt, but we’re going to be taking every bit of your projected output for the foreseeable future, Doctor. Until you fill our order, you’re not to do any marketing of our material to outside interests: no samples, no flashes, and no personal tours.” Nathan’s voice took on a rather darker tone. “Allocarbium belongs to Windward until we say otherwise. Understood?”“Certainly!”MoreLess
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