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The workshop was deep beneath the Citadel, a natural cavern filled with the whisper of winds flowing through ancient limestone passages. Besides a long, deep light well, at least partially manmade, the room was also lit by torches, candles, and lanterns until it was nearly as bright as day. All, apparently, to support the eyes of one Mardukan.
That person was standing in front of a large wall of limestone which had been smoothed to the consistency of glass. The white wall was heavily overlaid with black charcoal scribbles, and those scribbles were getting thicker as the ancient Mardukan covered the wall in meandering doodles like a cave painter of old.
Most of the scribbler's constant mutter was directed at Rus From, who was following him around with a bemused expression. Other than that, Fain recognized a couple of other members of the pike regiment. And, especially, a couple of the humans.
Pol followed him like a shadow as he walked up behind sergeant Julian.
"Pardon me, Sergeant," he whispered. "Do you perhaps remember me?"
Julian turned and gave him one of those strange human tooth-baring smiles.
"Fain, glad you could come," the human whispered back. "Hell, yes, I remember you. I was the one who suggested you for this."
The sergeant turned back to the show and waved at the gathering around the white wall.
"Look at that guy, will you? Amazing."
"Who is it?" the corporal asked. He knew better than to ask why he was here; the humans would tell him that when they were ready.
"Dell Mir. The local equivalent of Rus From, except that that's like comparing a hand grenade and an antimatter missile." The Marine shook his head again. "Rus From had barely started showing him a couple of outlines of what we were talking about, and he just took off, dropping ideas like rain."
"So is he going to make all the stuff they're talking about?"
"Nah. See the people following him around?" The sergeant pointed to a group of Mardukans with scrolls and tablets trailing along behind the two mechanical geniuses.
"Priests?"
"Nah. More like technicians, or maybe mechanical engineers. This guy, Wes Til, apparently set this up. Dell Mir spouts ideas all day long, and those guys write them all down and then go see how well they really work."
"Cool," Fain said. It was a human expression that meant "interesting" and "unusual" and several other things. Like "okay" it was such a good expression that it had been adopted by the entire New Model Army, and Julian gave a grunt of laughter when he heard it.
"We're going to be on the trigger team. Once the design is finalized, we'll be working with the job shops that are going to make the trigger mechanisms."
"I don't know anything about triggers or mechanisms at all," the Diaspran confessed. "Just because I'm from Diaspra doesn't mean I'm some sort of mechanical genius."
"Don't worry," Julian replied. "I'll handle all that. You're going to be a gofer."
"Gopher?" the Mardukan asked in some confusion. The human translating device sometimes used words that were just as alien as the humans themselves, but it was odd the way that even the strangest word seemed to carry hints of other meanings. "Some sort of basik?"
"No, a 'go-fer,' " Julian corrected. " 'Krindi, go-fer coffee. Krindi, go-fer lunch.' "
"Oh," the corporal said with a laugh. "Okay."
"Don't worry, it'll be more than that. In fact, we'll probably be bumping you up to sergeant to give you a bit more weight dealing with the locals. We'll be making sure the shops are supplying quality parts and that assembly shops are using only the specified materials. Everything's going to be standardized with interchangeable parts, so we can produce it in quantity."
"Big . . . ummm," the Diaspran struggled for a word.
" 'Project' would be the human term. Like building a dam or a major dike. Yeah, it is, and a rush one, too. We're about out of time."
The Marine broke off as Captain Pahner stepped to the front. The Marine CO looked at the sketches on the wall and shook his head.
"Simpler, Rus, Dell. Simpler. This thing has too many parts. Every one of them will tend to break in the field, and every one has to be made, adding to cost and time. So look at something like this and say to yourself 'How can I get rid of parts?' "
The slight K'Vaernian with the piece of charcoal in his true-hand turned and looked at the Marine with his head cocked to one side.
"But your techniques of industry and mass production will cut the production time, surely?"
"True," Pahner said, "but they're not magic, and there's something called lead time to allow for. The more time we spend here, working out potential bugs in the designs, the less time we spend working them out in the foundries, and the fewer we get into the field. Don't forget, 'mass production' requires us to design and set up the production lines before we get to the 'mass' part of the equation, and the more parts we have to make, the more setup time we'll need. So cut down on the complexity and find some way to get rid of parts. You did a good job of that with the new breech design, so I know you can do it here, too. Let me show you what I'm thinking about."
The captain stepped forward, took the charcoal from the Mardukan's unresisting hand, and began marking on the wall.
"See this? You've got a double set of springs here. But if you move the lever to here, you can eliminate one spring entirely."
"Yes!" the K'Vaernian said, taking the charcoal back. "And eliminate this—what did you call it? Sear? Take this one out, and extend this lever . . ."
"As you can see," Julian whispered again, "we have our work cut out for us."
"Sergeant, how are we going to train on these if they're not even produced yet? And how long are we going to have? I mean, the Boman could move out at any time."
"That's somebody else's problem," the Marine said with an evil grin. "You concentrate on ours."
* * *
The long, low boat grounded on the mud of the riverbank, and D'Estrees slipped over the side and into the underbrush.
Gu
Personally, the gu
And it was also no more than a third of the total numbers people kept throwing around for the Boman.
Jin hoped like hell that the enemy force estimates were excessive, but he didn't really think they could be off by too much. Like all the Marines, he'd developed a pronounced respect for Rastar and Honal, neither of whom seemed at all inclined to inflate enemy numbers to excuse their own defeats, and they both insisted that the combined clans of the Boman could put at least a hundred thousand warriors into the field . . . which suggested a total population, including women and children, of at least half a million. And given that, like the Wespar, all of the Boman clans brought their women and children along rather than leaving them at home and undefended while the men were away, that meant one hell of a lot of scummies had descended on what used to be the League of the North and the other cities on the northern shore of the K'Vaernian Sea.