“Well, we got that nuclear sub hid out in the harbor. Plenty of electricity. And we’ve got every computer design system on the West Coast. That all helps. Mostly, though, it’s just there’s no paperwork,” Max said. “No telephone lines to Washington. The engineers plan something, the computer people check it out, E and I agree, and it goes in, no conferences and change-approval meetings. We just do it.”
“It helps that everybody busts ass,” Gillespie said.
“That’s for sure. We’re here to get this done, not make money and take coffee breaks.”
It shows, too, Jenny thought. Max doesn’t look as if he’s had a night’s sleep in a month, and Ed looks worse. “So, when can I report she’ll fly?”
Max looked thoughtful. “Supposed to take a year more, but I’ll be surprised if we can’t launch in nine months. Maybe sooner.” He unrolled a sheath of drawings. “Look, the heavy work is the base plate. The barges bring that in pieces, and we have to put it together. Heavy work, but it’s still just welding and riveting. Then there’s the gun that puts the bombs behind the butt plate. If that fouls… well, we’re putting in two separate TBGs.”
“What?”
“Thrust bomb guns.”
“Oh. But there’s all the electronics, and life support, and — don’t I remember they needed nine months just to change toilets on the Shuttle?”
“Sure, NASA style,” Gillespie said. “We just install the damn thing. Of course it helps that we’re not shaving off ounces. We’ve got plenty of lifting power.”
You sure do. “Is everything coming in on schedule?”
“No, but we’re dealing with it,” Gillespie said. “Maybe you’ve noticed, there aren’t many of my Air Police here, just enough to guard the inner fences. I sent the rest over with Colonel Taylor to the Bremerton Navy Yard to put the fear of God into those bastards…”
“Which sped up deliveries something wonderful,” Rohrs said. “Here, let’s have another round.” He fished out more beer bottles.
“We’ve learned a lot of security tricks,” Gillespie said. “From Vietnamese, mostly.”
“Refugees?” Jenny asked.
“Some refugees, but mostly former Viet Cong. They know a lot. Ways to hide convoys. Hollow out logs to transport steel. Tunneling. All the things they did to us.”
“Maybe you should have kept your security troops here,” Jack Clybourne said. “I don’t think your local sheriff is enthusiastic about your project.”
“Yeah, I know,” Gillespie said. “I thought of telling him what we’re doing. Maybe that would get him working.”
“Why not?” Jenny asked.
“No. No telling what those people will do if they know what’s going to power this beast.” Gillespie shook his head. “The only safe place for miles around will be in the ship. Everything else will go. Somebody may think it’s better that the snouts drop rock on the harbor than have fifty atom bombs go off here.”
“It’s hard to believe anyone would deliberately inform,” Jenny said. “But it’s better to be safe. All right. What we need, then, is cover stories. What are you building if it’s not greenhouses?”
“We thought about that a lot,” Gillespie said. “How do you like a prison?”
“Prison?”
“Secret, for political prisoners. Explains why there are so many soldiers. If anybody gets too suspicious, we let them think we’ve got political prisoners from Kansas. Collaborators we couldn keep in Kansas because they’d be torn apart by mobs. Deserters.”
“It might work,” Jack said. “And if they don’t believe that what do you fall back on?”
“That’s as far as we’ve—”
“Nested cover stories. Like an onion.” Jack began drawing concentric circles on a notepad. “Penetrate one and you come to the next, and you still don’t have the real secret. So what’s the next one?”
“Bathyscape?” Gillespie asked. “Underwater research facility under construction?”
“No. Why keep that a secret? Hell, we’ll come up with something. Let’s keep talking.”
Jenny leaned over to look. Outside the circles Jack had printed GREENHOUSE. Inside the first, COLLABORATORS.
They drank.
“Snouts,” Jenny said.
“Eh?”
“Captives. A big research facility, to study captive snouts. The aliens wouldn’t bomb that, but we’d have good reason to keep it secret from our people.”
“That’ll work.”
“In fact, that’s why we house the collaborators here, to talk to the snouts!”
Clybourne smiled. “So. Who do we have who can design prisons?”
