Stars Of Wonder - An "Of Unity" Narrative

[CBR JGWRR]

"Faiths And Fuels, Part 9"
Tana B'Khenna
5th Zaru-Toru, Y.C. 807
Research Board, The Foundry​

Rivi throws herself on the bunk next to me. "This is... Mad. They call whacking a tank with a hammer and pre-thinned fault lines a successful test..."

I shudder as the image of the fuel tank flying through the air fills my mind. "Yeah. I'm getting second thoughts."

She sighs. "I think we should get back to the Archive. There must be better solutions tried."

I look out the tent. "But... I don't know. The thing is, sure we could incorporate the Archive. But would it mean as much to just copy what they did?" I point out the tent. "It might well be terrifying and dangerous, but this is all ours. And I think that counts for something."

She stares. "They've buried people, Tana."

I think about the fuel tank. "I know. Nine dead, twenty retired, I heard too." I sigh. "But maybe that itself is a reason to do things our own way. We take our time, we do things right... We learn our lessons."

She shrugs. "We could learn lessons more easily through the Archive."

I lie on my back. "But is that the right way though? Is one mission and then done the way we should go?"

She rolls to face me. "What I think is that we have the opportunity to understand how they did it, and learn from them."

I look out the tent again. "But we would miss out on this... We'd trade further growth as a people for a quick turnaround. And I think more risk... I think that we should treat it as four missions, not one."

She stares. "But it is one mission."

I shake my head. "No. Launchpad to orbit of the homeworld. Homeworld outbound. Landing. Return. Each stage has different challenges, and each one could be done with dedicated vehicles to give each mission the best chance possible."

"With so much more to go wrong though." She shrugs. "And besides, the Council have basically already agreed we'll be leading what comes after... a one off mission sets us going for our destiny much quicker."

"I know they'll ultimately make the decision. But, if we have dedicated vehicles for each stage, we could maximise the potential for safely completing each stage." I get up, put some bowls on the floor. "Look. Remember the numbers on the board that they worked out?"

"Yeah."

I jot down the equations. "So, they began with the estimates of our world's size. And they worked out how fast we'd need to travel to sustain that, right?"

She nods. "Yeah."

"So, the momentum exchange principle means some mass is ejected so that the mass we want to keep to complete the mission gets there - fuel mass times velocity is equal to rocket mass times velocity."

"Yeah. Your point is? I mean, we build a rocket, burn it's fuel, get there, come back."

I shake my head. "I don't think we can do it with one rocket, Rivi." I draw a table. "Follow my logic here. How much rocket do you think we'll need?"

She sits up. Pauses. "At least two people. And their survival equipment. And a box for all that to go in."

I smile. "Want to chuck a number on that mass?"

She yawns. "Four to one relative to each person, say."

"So we are at ten of us as our starting point, right?"

She nods. "Go on."

"And that goes at ten thousand strides a moment."

She gulps. "And Tori is not confident of finding a rocket that does ten thousand strides a moment."

I nod. "Exactly. Lets say we only have a thousand strides a moment. That means we need ten times the fuel of what we want to move. And at this point, we have just our habitation module and our bubble of fuel."

She nods. "Two very unrealistic assumptions."

I nod. "And so, we need fuel containers, we need a module separation system for evacuation when this thing goes wrong, and we need it all in a fairing that holds shape against much faster airflow."

She sucks in air. "I see where you are going with this now. I mean, if we need say... twice as much mass in total rocket before fuel as we do in habitation module, and ten times as much fuel as total rocket mass..."

I gulp. "And the tank mass increases with the more fuel we need, and then the fuel mass itself increases with the amount of fuel we need..."

She gulps too. "And the engines have to get bigger and more powerful to lift it all up."

"Exactly. And at this point, we've only just gotten to orbit and our hypothetical rocket already is a huge fuel tank with a very small habitation module on the top of it."

"And those big engines we needed on the launchpad will be so powerful that they'll be uncontrollable once we are down to the massively reduced mass in orbit."

I nod. "So, I think we need to think of having stages to our rocket. We can put parachutes on fuel tanks, and as they drain and get used up, we detatch them."

She leans in, nodding fast. "We'd have to get rid of them, we can't keep lifting drained tanks... And yeah, worst case they are going to be really big tanks, we need to make sure they land safely."

Visions of massive tanks squashing buildings run through my mind. "Or at least give people time to get out of the way."

She stands. "And eventually we get rid of engines too, and use smaller engines for a subsequent stage."

"Yes! And a big chunk of rocket too."

I look at the equations. She looks out the tent. "We really need to know how fast those rockets they are testing go."

 

[CBR JGWRR]

"Faiths And Fuels, Part 10"
Tana B'Khenna
6th Zaru-Toru, Y.C. 807
Research Board, The Foundry​

Tori puts down our chalkboard. "Not bad, I'm glad to have the external check. This is pretty much in line with our mathematics."

Rivi sighs. "The big unknown is what kind of exhaust velocity can we get?" She looks at the board. "Unless we can get two thousand strides a moment, we'd never make orbit."

Tori shrugs. "I have no idea, honestly, what we've achieved so far is so erratic that I can't say. After all the explosions so far, I was happy just to have a fuel we could burn... But, while I concede there were some restraint issues, that fuel tank test did prove one thing."

"Which is?"

Tori smiles. "We can achieve a thrust to weight ratio of at least one. That is a fairly critical objective." He runs a claw through his fur. "And one that was keeping me up at night, I confess." He pauses. "Still, we have some ideas for how to observe the exhaust velocity of our engines. We've been thinking about this, and we have two solutions. The one I have a team working on at the moment is a simple wheeled sled running along a track that we make as low friction as we can. We know the mass of the sled, and the tank, and the engine. The track is of known measurements, and by timing how long the sled takes to pass between two reference points we can establish the total change in velocity, which we can then use through the exchange of momentum to calculate the observed exhaust velocity."

"And the other?"

He pauses. "Measure how quickly the test stands fail." Shrugs. "Its what we've been doing so far..."

Rivi jumps. "What if we tried to use explosions? I mean, let's face it, we are a lot better at making explosions than we are at making nozzles."

Tori hmms. "Well... We are working on better nozzles. Still, we shouldn't rule out any ideas until they've been tried." He grabs a chalkboard. "Let's see. We'd need a bomb rack here to store the bombs, a launching mechanism - one of us throwing it maybe? No, too imprecise... I'll think about that - a retractable shield to hide behind, and then a big plate to absorb the explosion." He stands back from the board. "I guess it works in principle..." Rubs his chin. "I'll have the boys make some much smaller tanks and some fuses, and we can see what happens."

I look at Rivi. "Are you sure about this?"

She looks at me. Then over at where the fuel tank hit yesterday. "Well... At least the tank size is smaller, right? More controlled."

 

[CBR JGWRR]

"Faiths And Fuels, Part 11"
Tana B'Khenna
6th Zaru-Toru, Y.C. 807
Tank Fabrication, The Foundry​

Tori claps as he barges through the door ahead of us. "Right chaps, lets get to it! I want some small tanks for the next test, we've had an idea about something a bit different. Come round here!"

They gather as he thumps the chalkboard on the desk. A man with thick grime clogging his fur flicks up his googles. "What now?"

Tori waves him over. "Look. We thrashed out this idea. All we are looking for is a rough and ready tester. Tank rigged to explode when desired and a hemispherical plate to try to capture the blast."

Googles looks at him. "You want to make a bomb?"

Tori scowls. "I know what it sounds like, but it deserves testing."

Googles snorts. "Fine. Give us a couple of hours."

We wander off.

Come back to the board. Rivi writes out equations. "So... I've been thinking. I wanted to work out what we could reasonably expect from the blast. Have we measured the energy released in a detonation yet?"

Tori shakes his head. "Not done enough tests to obtain consistency of nozzle failures yet, we're still working on getting good nozzles."

"Oh." Rivi tosses her head. "Still... We can work it out in principle though. How big is it going to be?"

I shrug. "Depends on what they come up with for the tank."

Tori nods. "Yes, you'd make the tank first, then the test plate."

Rivi sighs. "Come on guys, throw some numbers at me here." She growls. Turns to the chalkboard. "Air resistance will slow it down a lot, I bet."

I join her. "True. Fuda B'Tiru's formula is force equals density times velocity times drag coefficient times area divided by two."

Rivi smiles. "And air density around here is like 1.2, velocity... who knows, we'll put some numbers here and iterate likely speeds. Cd?"

Tori looks at a fuel tank. "Well, looking at the tanks we have laid around here, we're not looking at a plate, but a fairly decent length to radius ratio rounded off cone."

I glance quickly. "Which lowers drag."

Tori laughs. "Hopefully."

Rivi looks back from the board, having drawn a table. "Ok, here's what I think. I think we should run the numbers for velocities of ten, a hundred and a thousand strides per moment, with areas based on a radius of half a stride, full stride and two strides. It's not going to be bigger than that, right?"

I shake my head. "We really need an estimate for the energy release."

Tori shuts his eyes. "It can shatter steel. Pretty potent."

Hmm. "That means we can work it out based on what thickness of steel contains the explosion."

Rivi shakes her head. "That gets into confining extreme pressure... We're not confining the pressure, but using it to deliver a huge and hopefully uniform impact to the test plate."

Tori rubs his head. "I'm going to go check on my teams, I'll leave you to it."

I join Rivi by the board. "You want the safety radius, right?"

She nods. "Yeah. And the bit that worries me is that we don't know whether that could be ten strides or a thousand." She sighs. Stares at the board.

I tap her on the shoulder. "So, what exactly do you want to work out?"

She taps her fingers for a few moments. "My assumption is air resistance will significantly dominate the slowing down forces the plate will undergo. So, work out air resistance, and that will give us a reasonable upper estimate for the safe zone for our test."

I add another row to her table. "Plate masses would be another key variable."

She nods. "True. What do you think, an armweight, a bodyweight, and three bodyweight?"

"For the steel?" Hmm. "Let's just run the numbers, and find out."

 

[CBR JGWRR]

"Faiths And Fuels, Part 12"
Tana B'Khenna
6th Zaru-Toru, Y.C. 807
Tank Fabrication, The Foundry​

"How are you ladies getting on?"

I turn back. It's Tori. I point at the board. "We've run some speculatory numbers, and it heavily depends on the mass of the plate. But our worst case projection is a thousand stride exclusion zone."

Tori walks to the board. "Oh. The other team is already setting up."

He points behind him.

Two men carry the dome of metal, a third carries the fuel tank-bomb.

Rivi frowns. "Are they carrying it with two people because it's heavy, or because it's bulky..."

Tori strides to them. "Now then lads, the ladies have been playing the beads. They reckon we want a thousand strides to be sure of safety."

They look at each other. "Uh boss, we don't have a fuse that long."

Tori runs his hand along his sabres. "Oh. Ah." He glances back at us. "Well, they probably over-estimated it. I'll light it. For science!"

He claps his hands together.

Rivi and I look at each other.

Then start running.

Eventually I flop on the floor. "This has to be far enough, right..."

Rivi turns. "Maybe. I mean.... Hopefully Tori is right about us over-estimating the numbers."

I sigh. "I don't know... We worked it out based on how far previous tank detonations have expelled debris, we looked at weight, at air resistance, wind direction..."

She sighs now. "Hopefully it was carried by two people because it was heavy, won't go so far then."

The explosion grabs our attention. We squint up, try to spot it... "There!"

Rivi drops her view down, and stares. Smiles. Then frowns. "The good news is, we did overestimate it."

I look at her. "That's good, though."

She looks down. "Not when we're trying to develop a propulsion system..."

We sprint back.

Tori is still jumping for joy. "We had lift-off! We had lift off! And the plate still looks vaguely dome shaped. Yes!" He claps. "Cracking job lads!"

He looks at the two men bringing back a charred and bent metal dome, and the third with a list of measurements. "Well boss, these are the numbers. It travelled a hundred and twenty strides along the ground, although we aren't sure how high."

Tori hugs the men. "The point is, it worked!" He claps. "We'll quantify the next one better."

I look at Rivi. "Rivi."

"Tana?"

I sigh. "I want to go back to the Archive."

 

[CBR JGWRR]

"Faiths And Fuels, Part 13"
Tana B'Khenna
7th Zaru-Toru, Y.C. 807
Cloud Strider Boarding, The Foundry​

Tori smiles. "Sure I can't persuade you to stay?" He laughs. "You know, we are close to a break-through, I can feel it."

I glance at the test benches. "Yeah... I just..." I shrug. "You know, the safety aspect. I just don't want to risk it."

He nods slowly. "I understand. You too Rivi?"

Rivi nods. "Yeah, and besides, I'm needed at the Archive."

Tori bows, and leaves.

We climb the rigging onto the deck. We sit. "Rivi."

"Yes?" She files her claws.

"Want to come to Fari B'Dai's lecture on the way back? He's staying in the Core for a few weeks right now, and he's asked for us personally."

She stares at me. "Oh? Us?"

"He's been experimenting with sparkpower for years now, and he's delievering a series of lectures on the principles he's observed."

She leans in. "And us?"

I show her the letter. "He asked about the Archive, whether we had uncovered anything that might assist the direction he should take his next series of experiments in."

She smiles. "So we pick up some documents and go to one of the lectures afterwards."

I smile. "Exactly."

 

[CBR JGWRR]

"Fun With Jars"
Tana B'Khenna
11th Zaru-Toru, Y.C. 807
Fumi B'Wotan Lecture Theatre, Sana-Woru Priesthood Forum​

He claps. "Friends, colleagues, guests and visitors. Welcome! Tonight, you shall witness the demonstration of my studies away on the plains of Kharon."

He walks around the stage. Stops in front of a small mirror array and a selection of B'Funda's Jars. "It has been a long time since Dina B'Funda's discovery that sparkpower could be stored in a glass jar filled with water when rubbed vigorously. See the composition of the jar; glass, water within, and cork with a metal rod that ends in a sphere running through it." He picks it up. "When rubbed, like so, it charges." He puts it down carefully.

Stands up. "These early jars had the unfortunate habit of accidental discharge, causing injury."

He comes to the next one. "We improved, and now we have jars like these. See the components - one inner foil lining here." He holds it up, then puts it on the table. "Then the glass." Puts that on the table. "And the outer foil. Between these components we have safe storage of charge, even when dissasembled like this."

He stands back up, and comes forward. "Ladies and gentlemen, a question for you; what could we do with this? Any takers?"

"Make your fur stand up!" A little child jumps.

Fari smiles. "Yes, it does, well observed!" he points at the child. "But, my boy, do you know why it does that?"

The kid chews his lips a little. "Umm... No." Hangs his head. "Not really."

Fari comes forward, rests his hand on the child. "Hazard a guess my boy. Tell me child, what does it take to be a scientist?"

Boy looks at the floor a moment. "A lab?"

Fari smiles as he shakes his head. "Well, a lab can help. But it is not quite right. No, what it takes to be a scientist is asking why. Why does sparkpower make our hair stand on end? Why does it give us shocks? Why, as we will see in later experiments, can it make objects move without being touched? It needs wonder, it needs curiosity. And anyone can wonder why a thing happens. There are no wrong questions to begin the path to discovery, and to ask why is the most critical question in our journey."

The boys looks up. "Does the sparkpower not like our fur?"

Fari comes back to him. "Well now, my boy. What you have just suggested here is a hypothesis - is sparkpower an agent, capable of like and dislike? Is there an unseen hand guiding the actions?" He holds out his hands. "What do you think?"

Kid shrugs. "I don't know." He leans back. "How can we know?"

Fari nods. "A more valid question than you realise. How can we know? Do the Fates dictate everything, or does natural law supercede them? As scientists, we practice our belief in the latter. In high language, we call this belief 'methodological naturalism', a complicated way of saying that we assume that this world is not some game of a higher power. As priests of Sana-Woru, we of course recognise that the gods exist. They are wise enough to make a world that is not so ad hoc as to need constant intervention to keep running, but instead a world where we can trust and rely on what we discover about the world around us." He turns, back to the jars. "Which leads us back to sparkpower. Observe!" He discharges the jar through himself, his fur blowing out. "It is not because sparkpower chooses to act, but instead sparkpower carries charge, and our fur also carries charge, and when they interact, they repel."

I grab Rivi. "Rivi, look, we could use this."

Rivi stares. "Not powerful enough..."

"What if we could make it powerful enough?"

Rivi stares.

So does Fari. "Ladies, may I inquire what the two of you are discussing during my lecture?"

Rivi stands. "Forgive us. I am RIvi B'Uniti, and this is Tana B'Khenna, and we realised your research has applications that could be useful for the space program the Council has begun."

Fari jumps and smiles. "Oh, well... I have something even better to show then." He strides off, and pulls a sheet away from an array of B'Funda Jars. "I shall leap ahead to what was the last planned demonstration from tonight, for my research has discovered something else, even more fantastic than this." he waves over his standing out fur. "Observe!"

He discharges the jars.

A plate sparks.

A grainy pellet of iron leaps into the air.

Fari catches it.

He smiles. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the age of sparkpower."

 

[CBR JGWRR]

"The Road Ahead"
Tana B'Khenna
15th Zaru-Toru, Y.C. 807
Saka B'Lirga Conference Hall, Sana-Woru Priesthood Forum​

Rivi puts Wera's folder on the desk. "So, the last item on our agenda is to discuss the efforts that the Crafts-priests of Nori-Woru have achieved. In brief however, their approach displays a commitment to rapid iterative processes that have a high level of tolerance for unplanned experimental disassembly."

I smile. "What she means is they're blowing a lot of stuff up."

Rivi passes the folder around. "Wera was planning to discuss his notes from his visit to the Foundry, however he is unwell and left that to us, as we've also visited the Foundry."

Pira B'Rugha lifts herself from her chair. "How exactly are they progressing? Have they made anything work?"

I nod. "Their... Approach is getting results. Thousands of people are out in the desert, hammering out thousands of tonnes of imported materials that they've built a rocketry centre amid the endless tents. They have tested dozens of chemical reactions, and well, the results so far are disappointing - only one chemical reaction has been found that doesn't melt their test nozzle design. And the bad news is that fuel is incredibly dangerous - while we were there, we saw several tanks of this stuff explode, and only three times were the explosions intentional."

Pira shakes her head. "So... Why not keep looking?" She sits. "Or are we evaluating abandoning the program?"

Rivi waits a few moments. "I believe that if we allow the Crafts-priests to keep going, many people will die in accidents that a cautious and thorough process of research would have prevented."

I look at Pira. "But equally, I think they'll get a rocket before we do." I shrug. "And they can always make it reliable after it's built - we know this project will take us decades."

Rivi nods. "We should remember that the Crafts-priests are taking it very seriously to improve as quickly as possible - the last time we saw a test, we looked down from our departng Cloud Strider and saw it was a shaped fuel tank that had hydraulic systems that acted to control aerodynamic flaps on the tank after it was fired from guidance rails to control the flight direction. I have the worrying feeling they are considering putting someone on one of these things with a parachute in the near future."

Hushed whispers. Pira stands again. "Well... I think that means we don't necessarily have to worry about the rocket then, because it sounds like Tori's people will come up with some mad contraption that works. Let's plan ahead. What exactly are we going to do on Second Home? Plant a flag and go home?"

Rivi filters through the folder. "Wera has outlined what he would like to study, but Tana and I have done lots of calculations already... Planetary circumference indicates that orbital speed is measured in thousands of strides a moment. Much faster than anything we've ever done. We are not entirely new to rocketry - Mora B'Wilma's work in colour-coded signal flares marks one of the earlier uses, and his efforts to try to quantify the metrics observed informed our calculations." She marches to the board behind her. "Summarising, let w1 represent the absolute-weight of the rocket without propellant and let w2 be the absolute-weight of the rocket with propellant. Let t be the number of moments over which the propellant reacts. Finally, v1 is the final velocity obtained, and v2 the velocity of the ejected propellant, with v3 being the total change in velocity. Yita B'Newto's 2nd principle of motion, that force f equals the final momentum less the initial momentum divided by the time acted over applies here, and gives us that w1v1 is equal to w2v2. From here, we see via substitution of the applicable components and solving the subsequent calculations that the sum of forces is equal to the differential of v1/t + v2 times the differential of m2/t. In the absence of exterior forces total momentum is conserved, which yields that v1=v2 times the natural logarithm of w2/w1."

I stand. "Which is a long winded way of saying that the mass of propellant, for a given exhaust velocity, rises exponentially as desired final velocity increases."

Rivi smiles. "Quite - put simply, if you want a final velocity equal to your exhaust velocity, then half your rocket is propellant. If you want a final velocity equal to twice your exhaust velocity, then your propellant has an absolute-weight amost three times the rest of your rocket. 3 times exhaust velocity means more than nine times as much propellant, and by four times, you need more than 20 times as much propellant as you have rocket." She frowns. "To make orbit requires, we think, in the region of 8000 strides a moment." She sighs. "The exploding fuel tanks we have right now are barely a few hundred strides a moment in exhaust velocity."

Pira stands. "They'll never make it... How much improvement might we get?"

I smile. "Well, the good news is we have no idea how much improvement we could gain from improved designs of rocket engine."

Pira shakes her head. "Ten times better then, say 2000 strides a moment... That would be 20x as much absolute mass..."

Rivi starts writing. "It means our pilot, a box to contain them safely on their way to orbit, a box for the propellant that scales in size with the inverse of the density of the propellant, plus engine mass, plus aerodynamic shell. That is to say to make a rocket that puts one of us in orbit, means a rocket measuring thousands of us on the launchpad."

I smile. "Thankfully, that means it is possible. We just need to build really, really big."

Pira looks at me. "How big?"

"Big enough that we have to make it a series of progressively smaller rockets - start with the utterly humongous one, throw it back down, light up the second to go faster, then throw that back down, and repeat until we get to orbit. From orbit, we need to transfer to Second Home, and then land from orbit around it, then take off again to return."

Pira opens her hands. "Which means what? Twenty thousand strides a moment?"

I shrug. "Hopefully less. But maybe."

Pira looks back at the board. "So we are looking at a rocket of absolute-weight equivalent to hundreds of thousands of us."

I sigh. "Look, ok, I get it. The numbers are crazy big. But crazy big does not mean impossible. Tori... For all his faults, he is inspiring. I don't know if the rocket is possible, but his infectious enthusiasm and dedication... I believe he'll do it, somehow. We have only just started, and he and the thousands of Crafts-priests of Nori-Woru are hammering away to achieve it. Give them a few years, and who knows what they'll do."

Pira frowns. "Rivi... Tana... You want us to put people on top of a spire of steel as big as this whole forum that's full to the brim of this unstable and volatile chemical that you compare to a bomb. A chemical that you've personally seen numerous containment failures with... To ride a blaze that might well turn night into day streaking into the dark..." She sits. "How many will die?"

Rivi stands quietly. Looks at her feet. Then back to Pira. "Centuries ago, my ancestor Ruki B'Uniti climbed Mount Sunda, in the southern ice fields. He returned, missing several claws and toes. They asked him 'why did you go to die?' He replied with 'To go boldly where no one has gone before.' I am Rivi B'Uniti, and Second Home is my Mount Sunda." She takes a step forward. Looks across the audience. "Who's with me?"

 

[CBR JGWRR]

"Council Politics, Part 1"
Rivi B'Uniti
16th Zaru-Toru, Y.C. 807
Reception Chamber Of The Council, Core District​

Pira stops me as I enter, smiling. "Rivi, about yesterday. I want to discuss something before we go in to cover for Wera."

I sigh. "Yeah, I know. I stood alone on there. Not even Tana backed me up."

She shows me her calculations. "Correct me if I am wrong, but I took the 2000 strides/moment estimate and I worked out a rough estimate of what it would take to deliver a single Xenaya to Second Home and back. And I discovered something."

"I know it's a lot of fuel."

Her smile grows wider. "It's a departure from low orbit absolute-weight of anywhere upwards of a thousand of us Rivi."

I sigh. "I know."

She grabs my hand. "No, you don't get it do you - that could easily be entire labs in low orbit Rivi. Fully staffed labs, not just a scientist and a bag of experiments taken as hand luggage like the Second Home mission would be. I'm going to put it to my teams today to ask the question of what kind of research they would like to do once up there." She laughs. "I must confess I haven't slept - imagine what we could learn!"

I take a moment.

Think it over.

Run over her numbers.

I can't see anywhere where she hasn't had to assume the kind of speculative assumptions I have to.

It makes sense... "I guess so."

"Rivi, don't you see? This is our hook. This is no longer about commiting a huge amount of resources on what - being unkind for a moment - amounted to Tori's vanity. This is now about researching what life would be like for the future. New food production techniques, new means of research, new industries, I don't even know what there is to discover. Rivi..." She takes me to one side. "Look, we both know that there is a measure of... Hostility to your people. We could even sell the idea of shifting the Rukonians off-world as a golden prize for Kari B'Kundu."

I frown. "That would be ethnic cleansing."

She nods. "I agree. But it would also give you the chance to protect your people from ever being attacked by him again."

"I suppose."

She sighs. Looks up the hallway. "Look, Rivi... This is a budgetary commission meeting of the Council. This is where they decide how the resources available to the Council will be distributed. The more we can appeal to them, the better."

 

[CBR JGWRR]

"Council Politics, Part 2"
Rivi B'Uniti
16th Zaru-Toru, Y.C. 807
Discretionary Resource Allocation Office, Core District​

"The budgetary commission recognises Rivi B'Uniti and Pira B'Rugha. Make your request."

The speaker taps his desk, and Pira begins. "Speaker Yidi B'Parhi and members of the commision. As you are aware, the Council has agreed to fund the development of a rocket program to build us towards the goal of landing a Xenaya upon Second Home, and returning them safely. We are here today to argue for a substantially increased allocation of funds."

I join. "This budgetary commission is responsible for allocating investment in research programs. The Rite of Sana-Woru has been assessing additional mission structures on the basis of extrapolating from the capability required to deliver the primary goal of the mission, and we believe there is a case for the rocket program to utilise the entire research and development budget."

Hush murmurs everywhere. Yidi looks at me. "That is an ambitious request. We have dozens of new petitions every single day, with no end in sight to the realm of projects that are put forward. Care to explain why I should tell every single one of them no?"

I unroll the first set of equations. "Members, this is a preliminary assessment of the anticipated stages needed for the mission of landing people on Second Home and returning them, broken down based on a series of anticipated input metrics that are targeted by the Crafts-priests of Nori-Woru. Of key note is this 3rd Stage. The 1st and 2nd stages consume the equivalent of more than 200,000 Xenaya by bodyweight to lift this 3rd stage to orbit. This 3rd stage represents the absolute-weight of more than two thousand Xenaya lifted into orbit."

Pira takes over. "We therefore come before this budgetary commission with the understanding that we could put entirely new fields of research into orbit around our Homeworld. The opportunities for growth are orders of magnitude greater than continuing to push our Homeworld to the limits."

That gets cautious nods. Even from Yidi. "We recognise that. But can you be sure that this is even feasible? By your own admission, your numbers are hypothetical and your tested hardware improvised."

Pira smiles. "It is true that our best technical demonstrations are uncontrolled flying fuel tanks and the ability to make iron fillings jump. But, they are the beginning."

Yidi tuts. "Look, we see no evidence of these hypothetical gains. You claim that they may come. But there's nothing here that justifies your proposal according to our criteria-"

I step forward. "Then change the criteria."

Yidi stands. "We do not change the criteria."

I stretch out the hand that opened the blood seal. "You do now."

Yidi stares. Laughs. "Pray tell girl, what is that? Did you cut yourself?"

I scowl. "I am Rivi B'Uniti, heir of Ruki B'Uniti. I opened the blood seal to the Archive of my ancestors." I look at Pira. "Together, we represent the declared will of the Council to pursue the task set before us as one Xenayan people. Frankly, you should be asking us where we want you to invest the resources."

Yidi glares. Growls. "You walk in here, fire and thunder, and demand we bow to you?"

"I demand that you do your duty. The bureaucracy exists to serve the Council. You are holding back resources needed to achieve the goals of all nine Rites of the Council, plus me, the Rukonian High Queen."

The member who sits in the seat of Noma-Hama smirks. "I believe an accommodation could be met - we use your people as the test subjects for the dangerous experiments."

I smile. "You say that like you've forgotten that we descended from the stars."

Pira tugs on my arm. "What Rivi means is that, ultimately, this proposal has already been signed off with an agreement to invest whatever necessary on the authority of all of the Council. Her Rukonian heritage is actually irrelevant to this discussion. Tori himself leads constant innovation in the Foundry Nori-Woru have built, and all of our High Priests have signed off projects within their influence. This is not a partisan issue."

Yidi rubs her head. "This commission decides how our budget for the development of new technologies is spent. We do not pour the public's wealth down the drain of ifs and maybes." He glares at us. "And I see only ifs and maybes."

I yawn. "The criteria have changed." I take out a note. Sigh. "You had the chance to join willingly, but you leave me no choice. Yidi B'Parhi, your objections are overruled and you are required to release the funds requested, signed Wera B'Gurda, Tori B'Qunra."

He snorts. "Anyone could fake a note."

I turn the note over. "But not the personal seals of two High Priests."

She frowns. "That is irrelevant. It takes a decision from the whole Council to override our duties to fiscal responsibilty." He looks past us. "Remove them."

I'm grabbed from behind.

They throw us out.