Radiant Warrior by Leo Frankowski

Author:Leo Frankowski [Frankowski, Leo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780743488631
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2004-12-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

I spent the morning giving the duke and his party a tour of the facilities at Copper City. He seemed most impressed with the eight steam engines we were installing, two of which were already operational. They Page 86

were all single expansion units, and not very efficient thermally, but I had a use for the waste heat. All the buildings had steam radiators in every room, which condensed the steam back to water to be pumped into the tubular boilers again. Cogeneration. Come spring, we'd be installing a leather tannery to use that excess heat in the summertime.

That evening, we again dined with the duke, and Cilicia told the story of how her native city was destroyed by the Mongols. Everyone in the inn's dining room was listening. She told the same story that her father had told to me, but the way she told it got everyone in the room in the gut. I don't think that there was a dry eye in the place, and even the crusty old duke was in tears.

He promised me his continued support, as did every man in the room. Cilicia became my best propaganda device to generate support for the upcoming war, and she was to tell that story a hundred times over the next few years.

I spent three more days at Copper City after the duke left, mostly handling technical problems since the Krakowski Brothers were good managers and didn't need much help in that direction.

We made the run to Eagle Nest in one day, leaving before dawn and arriving after dusk. The instructors were in uniform, but only about half of the boys' outfits were completed so they were all still in civilian clothing.

It was getting beyond kite-flying weather and the hangar was big enough to fly model airplanes in. When we were building the installation we had so much manpower and timber available that I figured that we might as well build it big enough in the first place. The hangar was six dozen yards wide and twelve dozen long, big enough to accommodate any aircraft I could imagine building out of wood and canvas. It was rather like the church we had built at Three Walls, only two of them set side by side, though not as tall and with a dirt floor. Two huge counter-weighted doors faced the eventual runway.

But now we used it for model airplanes.

I spent three days, including Sunday afternoon, talking about aircraft, about lift and drag and the other forces on a plane. The type I got them going on was a high-winged glider, halfway between a sailplane and a piper cub. Sort of an observation plane without an engine.

The steam saw was put to work cutting very thin strips of wood, and I headed for Okoitz.

Count Lambert was enthusiastic about my idea for limelights in his cloth factory, mostly because it would permit his massive harem to stay there all winter. He was less enthusiastic about putting in a second shift.

As it was, the girls not currently being used slept on cots in the factory itself.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.