Free The Genie and the Engineer 3: Ravages of War by Glenn Michaels

of weeks. On the other hand, it
will take ten weeks to nurse new progenitors to adulthood and then start
cloning them.”
    “Got it. So all twelve of the new Scotties will be Daneels?”
Daneel 1 asked. “Yes that makes sense as well. With fourteen of us operational,
the work will go a lot faster.”
    “Exactly,” Paul agreed as he rubbed his hands together,
smiling. “We’ll split the fourteen Scotties into teams. A team to continue
mining raw materials, a second one to process them, another one to assemble the
new Scotties, and the last one to make new talismans.”
    “Talismans?”  Daneel 1 asked. “You aren’t going to make
chutzpahs?”
    But Paul just shook his head. “Not at first, no. The isotope
conversions would take too long. Later, when we have a lot more Scotties up and
operational, we’ll invest the time. But right now it’s more important to have
as many Daneels as we can get, even if all they have are standard talismans.”
    “We have almost all the hardware we need for twelve more
Daneels,” Daneel 2 pointed out, waving a hand on his monitor screen at the
workbench. “Except for the CPUs, some hardware and the printed circuit boards.”
    “I suggest fabricating the CPUs first,” recommended Daneel
1. “And for that, we need a clean room.”
    Paul smiled and nodded pleasantly. “I agree with that.
Fortunately, that isn’t too difficult.”
    With a wave of his hand, the walls, ceiling and floor took
on a glazed look as Paul fused their surfaces, preventing them from
contributing any further dust or dirt particles into the air. Then he cast a
second spell that condensed all of the particulate matter and water vapor in
the air down to a single small ball of mud floating gently in front of him.
With a twitch of his finger, it was hurled into one of the adjacent workshops.
    “I’ll take care of it later,” Paul asserted with a negligent
wave of his hand.
    “That’s the problem with housekeeping on Mars,” Daneel 2
whimsically complained. “Not a rug to sweep dirt under on the whole planet .”
    “The CPU templates are still packed away in the Astok
storeroom,” Daneel 1 said.
    “Oh, that reminds me,” Paul admitted with a thoughtful
frown. “You remember how much trouble we had with the original designs.
Especially the heating problem and the data bus sync issues. Well, I have a
couple of ideas for improvements in mind—”
    “‘I know engineers! They LOVE to change things!” Daneel 1
said, quoting McCoy in Star Trek The Motion Picture .
    “Indeed,” Paul responded, doing a fairly credible effort of mimicking
Teal’c from StarGate SG1.
    Ω
    Day 28
     
    Paul was in the Talu Workroom (from The Warlord of Mars ),
watching the fabrication of the first of the CPUs for the new Scotties when a
six inch hologram of Capie appeared in midair in front of him. “Dinner is
almost ready,” she announced.
    “Hey, that’s great news,” Paul said with a grin, wiping
sweat from his brow with the back of one arm. “I’ll be right up.”
    The hologram smiled impishly. “I did a little improvising. It
turned out pretty good, too, if I say so myself. I hope you like spaghetti?”
    “As a matter of fact, it is a favorite of mine,” Paul
replied with a chuckle. “I’m on my way!”
    Their dining room table settings were most impressive. Silver
plated dishware, diamond drinking glasses and titanium flatware. Synthetic
flowers sat in a china vase in the middle of the table. An embroidered
tablecloth sported intricate floral designs. Red and white checkerboard
placemats with matching napkins lent a hint of Italian ambience to the room,
not to mention the soft Italian music playing in the background.
    Paul nodded in approval. “Outstanding!” he told her. “First
class. From this point forward, you are the official interior decorator and
chief cook!”
    She bowed. “Thank you, kind sir.”
    Paul held out the chair for his wife, then eagerly grabbed
one for himself. He was enough of a