Commander Cantrell in the West Indies(37)
Lolly, who was inspecting some small outcroppings of marl that disturbed the smooth expanse beneath their feet, distractedly asked, “Why, Karl? They are good challenges for you: not always the easiest areas to read, geologically. They can be quite tricky unless you know what to look for.”
“So you have taught me. And very well, Ms. Aossey. But that still begs the question of why we are studying them at all.”
Lolly stopped, a bit perplexed. Quinn now had to hide a small smile. He was no geologist, but he had learned to read people pretty well, and he could see where Karl Klemm was headed. Lolly didn’t, apparently. “We study them because they are some of the formations you might encounter when you travel with Major Quinn to the New World.”
“Yes, I might. But it seems odd to focus so heavily on these formations, since I will not be expected to survey them closely, let alone exclusively.” Karl poked at an upthrust tooth of marlstone. “Or will I?”
Lolly shot a surprised and alarmed glance at Quinn, a glance which said: Oh. My. God. Could he have guessed where exactly you’re taking him? And why? And if that cat is out of the bag, does he have to be sequestered until you leave?
Quinn simply shrugged.
Lolly Aossey crossed her arms tightly. “Well, Karl, you never know where people might want to dig. Or for what.”
“That is true, although one immediately thinks of the New World’s coastal oil deposits. However, it does not stand to reason that the USE would be interested in those, or any, oil deposits known to reside in unconsolidated rock formations.”
“And why is that?”
“Because we cannot tap such deposits, not with our current drilling technology. A cable rig will not work. The constant pounding collapses the walls of the hole. To drill in soils such as these, which in the New World predominate around the Gulf coast oil deposits, you would need a rotary drill. A technology which we do not yet possess.” He looked up from the marlstone. “I am correct in my conclusions, yes?” He did not blink.
Quinn watched and heard Lolly swallow. Looking like an adolescent who’d been caught telling a lie to her parents, she spread her hands in gesture that marked her next utterance as both an explanation and appeal. “Well, Karl, now about that rotary drill—”
Undisclosed location near Wietze, USE
Ann Koudsi finished her morning cup of broth—it had been unseasonably chilly overnight—and nosed back into her books and progress charts again. As the second in charge of the rotary drill test rig, and ultimately, the superintendent who would be responsible for the new machine and its crew in the field, it was her job to be The Final Authority on all things pertaining to its operation. That, in turn, meant minor or full mastery of a wide range of topics, including practical geology, mechanical engineering, the physics of pressurized fluids and gases, and even organizational management. To name but a few.
So it was not merely frustrating but alarming and infuriating when, once again, concentration on the words, and charts, and formulae did not come easily. Indeed, she discovered that she had been reading the same line about assessing imminent well-head failures because, instead of seeing it, she was seeing something else in her mind’s eye:
Ulrich Rohrbach, down-time crew chief for the rig.
Which was not just foolishness, but utter, stupid, and dangerous foolishness. As she had kept telling herself over the last nine months. It was foolishness to allow him to court her at all. Foolish that they had started taking all their meals together. Foolish that they had spent Christmas visiting what was left of his war-torn family: a widowed sister and her two perilously adorable kids. More foolish still when they had started holding hands just before Valentine’s Day, a mostly up-time tradition which he had somehow learned of (Ann secretly suspected their mutual boss, Dave Willcocks, of playing matchmaker). And most foolish of all had been their first kiss as they were laughing beneath the Maypole just weeks ago.
And there were so many reasons why it was all extraordinarily foolish. First, Ulrich was a down-timer, albeit a perfect gentleman and more patient than any up-time American would have been in regard to the glacial progress of their relationship. It was foolish because Ulrich barely had a fourth grade education, although, truth be told, his reading had become much faster and broader in the past half year and revealed that his mind was not slow, merely starved. And it was foolish because he just didn’t look the way she had imagined the man of her dreams would look: he was not tall, dark, or particularly handsome. But on the other hand, he had kind eyes, thick sandy hair, dimples, a wonderful bass laugh, and a surprisingly muscular build, which, compacted into his sturdy 5’8” frame, would have put any number of up-time body-builders to shame.