Free Habitats (an Ell Donsaii story #7) by Laurence Dahners

elevator.”
    “Yeah.”
    “One way to make graphene is with vapor deposition from methane. At the right temperature and pressure, the methane will leave behind its carbon as a single layer on certain alloys but it sticks so hard that peeling it off as a continuous sheet is hard. Some of my calculations suggest that we could make it form so it would strip off easily in a microgravity environment. I think I could make a ‘proof of concept’ experiment that’s pretty tiny so it could go up in one of your small rockets.”
    “Hmmm, we can send up big payloads too. And we really need high tensile strength materials. Why don’t you build us something that’s big enough to actually try to spool off a long piece?”
    “Really? I thought you guys only made little rockets.”
    “What we make are the dimensional ports that fuel rockets. Without those ports, little rockets can’t fly very far. But the ports will also fuel large rockets and they’ll deliver unlimited synthesis materials to your ‘graphenator’ too.”
    “So… could you actually fly up the device I’ve been trying to work with down here on earth? It’s about four feet , by two feet, by six feet, not counting the methane supply bottles.”
    “Sure, and you could go up to orbit with it and run your experiment without even leaving the Learjet. You wouldn’t have to take up the bottles; we can give you ports to send the methane up through.”
    “Learjet? I need to get all the way out to a microgravity situation in orbit.”
    “Yeah, sorry I didn’t explain. We use a modified Learjet as our spacecraft. It flies out of an island in the Caribbean. It’s plenty big enough to take your experiment up. We can even pick your equipment up from whatever the nearest jet capable airport is. We’d pick you and the device up in a different Lter differearjet and fly you to the island.”
    “Wow! That’d be… great !”
    “When can you have it ready?”
    They spoke further arranging details but Gary hung up from the conversation shaking his head. A Learjet? That doesn’t sound safe. Is she crazy or brilliant? Well , he thought, he knew she was brilliant. But still, it seemed crazy.
     
    ***
     
    Manuel left the machine shop and headed over to the purchasing office. He had a cutting head for a three axis CNC machine that needed to be replaced. A few months ago he would have ordered another one and copied the order to the purchasing office. But that was before he’d had to talk to Shelly Williams about an ordering error. Manuel had always liked tall women and Shelly was just a little taller than he, dark hair, usually smiling. He’d made frequent excuses to visit the purchasing area since.
    W hen he heard Shelly had separated from her husband, he’d begun finding more and more reasons to have her order parts. “Hey Shell’, how’s my favorite order magician?”
    Shelly smiled broadly at him. “Manuel, you breakin’ more equipment and comin’ ‘round to beg me to get you replacements?”
    Manuel shook his head disconsolately, “Just workin’ so hard I’m wearin’ the equipment out Ms. Williams.”
    He raised his eyes so Shelly could see them twinkling. She laughed and said, “Come on, show me what you so urgently need me to get for you, but I think you’re going to owe me lunch…”
     

Chapter Three
     
    Ell got to the “Team Teecee” group a little late. She looked around a little surprised to see that Wheat, Piscova and Norris were all there in person. She looked around and asked, “Did I miss anything interesting?”
    Emma grinned at her, “Kira held an actual conversation with Goldy.”
    When Ell looked at her with raised eyebrows, Kira said, “We talked about the ‘pecking order’ in their tribe. ‘Pecking order’ probably isn’t a very good term, it’s probably more like their social rank but still, those on top boss around those below them.”
    Ell tilted her head, “And how does Goldy rank?”
    “Apparently he ranked really