Free Trade World Saga 1: Manual Interpretation by Ken Pence Page A

development cost so the university technology transfer group decided they would internally fund the development. I’m not asking you for money this time but this looks like these kids may really have something.”
    “Okay. Okay. When and where for this demo?” Philips asked neutrally. Drucker told him and he replied, “I’ll try to be there.” Damned right I’ll be there. If he could cut into the low-sulfur coal and petro cartels, he would be rich or dead. Rich was the better sort. He’d see about backing these kids privately to get into their other ideas.
     
    Across the city at the University, Tod and Joel had had some problem getting the kinks worked out of deuterium flow for their fusion plant but now work was going apace and their prototype was almost ready. The bitchin’ part of the alien belt power mechanism was figuring where all the wiring went though parts were huge compared to modern components. It was fairly straightforward after it was diagrammed and Tod had puzzled out a theory about WHY it worked.
    It diagrammed easily but it took some skull sweat before they figured how the power supply could be adjusted to produce different current and voltage. Power output of the old belt seemed naively constructed, limited by a shortsighted design. Slight modification and a magnetohydrodynamic design using neodymium, iron, boron magnets with strong Halbach arrays seemed capable of producing tremendous amounts of DC current. The new power supply should be small and would produce huge amounts of electricity. But the power supply was not the portion of the alien belt that produced the stressed space field. That portion was going to be separate reverse engineering nightmare.
    John was working with Susan on the material make-up of the power supply housing in the side of the warehouse the university had turned over to the students as a place to work on their 'power supply' project. John was a quiet kid who was the brunt of a lot of the group's jokes 'cause he was so serious. Several members of the team had even mentioned their loathing for chemical engineering though they did have to accede to the heady mathematics it took to do anything progressive in the field. John took it all in stride and would take all their crap and lie in wait mentally. He'd be at the edge of a group that was discussing this or that and would very quietly interject him into the discussion with a question or comment that would simply stun them or crack them up. He got the nickname, 'one liner'. John was a sought after commodity at discussions of late since he would often bring up ideas that hadn't occurred to other members of the team.
    Susan was describing the problem of having a power housing inside a hull. The hull would be surrounded by intense magnetic fields that would be generated. "John. I can't figure ought any way we can build a hull without costing b-zillions. It's not like this stuff is just lying around."
    "Is that a rhetorical question?" John asked with an amused eyebrow raised.
    "You know I'm serious. I have to figure out how to get a ship built with table scraps. Andrew is full of it if he thinks..."
    "Fuel storage tanks," John said cutting off her tirade.
    "What? No, no John. I'm talking about a ship hull and how to make it compatible with the power supply we're building...not fuel tanks. It can’t be metallic."
    "Fiber-ply fuel storage tanks," John said quietly for effect.
    Susan started to give him some grief when her eyes got wide. "Humongous, non-metallic, tough as hell, lasts forever, never used because of regulations...fuel storage tanks...like the ones right next to the campus that they have been trying to get rid of since...forever. Why didn't I think of that?" Susan said and gave John a very thorough hug. "You're a genius."
    He breathed in Susan's sweet smell and sighed, "Yep..."
     
    It didn't take the team long to check out the huge cylinders. They were charcoal black cylinders ten (10) meters in diameter and