Allotropes (an Ell Donsaii story #8) (9 page)

When Shan tried to ask how it worked. Querlak closed the door and turned
, looking about. She led Sigwald across to a different, much smaller machine. She worked with it a bit, evidently powering it up. She closed the door which proved to be transparent. Sigwald’s sensors registered the machine heating, then the bed at the bottom took on a red glow. They could see motion through the door. A broad nozzle passed back and forth laying down a spray of hazy material. After a couple of passes a bright beam began playing over much of the surface. Sigwald’s cameras registered it as coherent light, probably from a laser. The pattern rapidly changed and a different color beam began tracing a finer pattern on the surface. Excitedly Shan realized that the machine seemed to be working something like a 3D printer. He turned Sigwald toward Querlak, intending to draw some molecules in the dust again. However, there wasn’t much dust. Then he realized that they were in dim enough light to project a picture with Sigwald’s laser. He drew Querlak’s attention to the dark side of the machine and, signaling an interrogative, Shan had Allan use Sigwald’s laser to project graphene’s chickenwire hexagons with sixes at the nodes to indicate carbon.

For a moment Querlak seemed startled by the projection, then
giving an impression as if she’d shrugged, she walked off, looking around as if trying to find something. She came back with a disk that had one side lit up. She inserted a small flat square in the side of it and scrolled through pictures until she came to one diagramming a layer something like the one the machine appeared to be making. Off to the side of the layer was diagrammed a molecule that had boxed sixes at the nodes. Not chicken wire hexagons though. Instead of three lines emanating from each carbon like in graphene, each carbon had four lines tetrahedrally emanating from it. Emma gasped, “Is that diamond?”

They heard the voice of Allan, Ell’s AI speak. “I’ve been monitoring. That isn’t quite diamond’s structure. It’s lonsdaleite. They
look very similar.”

Ell’s voice appeared in their conversation as she said, “Allan told me something was happening. Is this some kind of fabrication machine?”

“We think so. Why would it be making lonsda… whatever?”

“Well the first layer it lays down would be the outside eventually. So probably they want a hard outer coating.”

“If they want it hard and can make a tetrahedral carbon, why not diamond? It would be a lot harder.”

“Actually no,” Allan said. “Pure lonsdaleite should theoretically be about 15 on the Mohs hardness scale while diamond is only 10. Unfortunately, all the lonsdaleite we’ve found or created so far on earth has a lot of impurities and flaws that weaken it.”

“What?!” Shan said. “I thought the top end of the Mohs hardness scale was
set
at 10 based on the fact that diamond
was
the hardest material?”

“It was when the scale was established.”

“Holy crap!” Shan whispered.

Querlak’s disk now showed a different structural layer. This layer had a diagram beside it showing layers of the chickenwire pattern of graphene. Querlak pointed to it and said in pidgin English, “like graphe
ne… but layers bonded… we say…” At this point Querlak uttered one of the tones that served the sigmas for words.

Allan said, “That tone has many of the same harmonics that their tone for graphene does but a few tones from their word for diamond. I suggest we call it graphend.”

Shan said, “That looks just like graphene to me?”

Emma said musingly, “No, look.
Some of the hexagon corners have a tetrahedral diamond type bond to the carbons in the graphene layer above or below them. That would keep the graphene layers from sliding past one another. It wouldn’t have quite the same tensile strength that graphene does but, because the layers won’t slide past one another, a thick stack of them would resist bending. You could use it for structures that need bending strength, not just tensile strength.” She looked around at the building, “Maybe the walls of this building and of the machines are made of it?”

Querlak’s disk indicated a different material being laid down like a trough in the ongoing layer deposition. With time, the trough became a pipe designated with more tetrahedral molecules. The material inside the little pipe that was being formed was designated with the hexagonal pattern of graphene. Shan asked, “Is that more lonsdaleite?”

“No, the tubular structure is diamond,” Allan said.

“Why diamond in the middle of this machine?”

“Diamond’s an insulator and properly oriented graphene’s an excellent conductor,” Ell said musingly.

“
Oh my God!” Shan said wonderingly. “They’re laying down, layer by layer, a machine that has an incredibly hard lonsdaleite outer shell to protect it. Then a layer of graphend, similar to the strongest stuff we know of, made a little weaker in the process of giving it some bending strength. And then, instead of installing wiring inside of cavities in the machine, it has diamond insulator built right around graphene conductors!?”

“It’s a single
element
3D printer! Most of our 3D printers only build things out of one or a few materials, mostly plastics that aren’t all that strong and really can only be used as models. When we need different material properties, we use completely separate machines to print parts from each different material and then have to assemble them. This thing only uses one material, carbon, but it’s using the different allotropes of carbon to make parts with different properties as it goes along. It’s making entire machines out of practically indestructible materials with electrical circuits built right into them. If they have to put
any
non-carbon parts into this thing when it’s done, I’ll bet it only needs a few!”

“What’s it making?”

“Who cares?” Emma laughed, “It isn’t
what
it’s making, but
how
it’s making it that’s important.”

Ell
snorted, “Well, I’m still a
little
curious as to what it’s making.”

Shan turned Sigwald toward Querlak to ask
what the machine was making, but then they heard a rapid burst of the sigma language that they’d been trying to learn. Querlak turned away from Sigwald. Turning Sigwald to look that way they saw that another sigma that had entered the building behind them.

Sigwald’s manipulators and wings looked droopy.
Even though they didn’t understand sigma body language, they were pretty sure Querlak was
not
happy to see the stranger.

Querlak was in fact, horrified.

“What are you doing here?” the stranger had barked.

For a moment Querlak hoped that Sigwald would remain motionless and that the stranger wouldn’t notice him. But as she faced the stranger she saw Sigwald’s head turning toward the new sigma. Diffidently, Querlak indicated the small constructor, “Making a small transporter.”

“
You
aren’t part of the local build-repair group!
Who
gave you permission to use our constructors? And what is
that
thing?” The stranger indicated Sigwald.

“I’m Querlak, one of the local surveyors.
I
discovered this alien,” Querlak waved an upper manipulator at Sigwald, “in the fields.” Querlak desperately hoped to claim Sigwald, and any new knowledge arising from him, as value added by her own clade. “I am taking him around the ringworld trying to win his goodwill. He has much to teach our people. As part of that effort to be friendly I am demonstrating the function of this small constructor to him.”

Querlak could see the stranger’s eye brighten as he expanded his TS and turned fully toward Sigwald. “Why haven’t I heard about any ‘aliens’?”

“I think this is the only one.”

In an exasperated tone the other said, “And why haven’t I heard about this
singular
alien? I am Keenar of the
Delnitch
clade,
we
would have known… unless you’ve been keeping it secret?!”

Querlak drooped
further as despair flashed through her clade. Delnitch clade, one of the very largest, had tremendous resources and power. The chances that Querlak could keep Sigwald to her own clade had just about evaporated. If only Sigwald had already taught her something of value! “We haven’t learned much as yet. We’ve been working to learn his language and just begun learning a few things about him. It isn’t the
time
yet to tell the world.”

“You mean,” Keenar sneered, “that you were hoping to keep it secret a while longer until you had learned anything
of importance for your own clade. Which clade do you belong to Querlak?” Keenar’s voice dripped disdain.

Querlak drew herself up, “I am of the Osnak clade… and we claim precedence on any discoveries made through this alien.”

Keenar blew air derisively through his spiracles. “Sure you do. What does it know that we don’t?”

Querlak blew a snort through her own spiracles, “For a start… how to travel between the stars. I thought you were working a TS?” Implying that a TS’d sigma
wasn’t
actually linked to its clade was an insult implying the clade lacked intelligence.

Keenar darted a look at Sigwald, evidently just now considering that the presence of an alien implied star travel. He turned a staring eye back to Querlak. “He’s
told
you how to travel to the stars?”

“Not yet.” Querlak tried to sound confident. “But he’s implied that if I teach him something, he’ll teach me something. I’m teaching him about how we manufacture
with carbon.”

“Why is he covered in magnesium?”

Querlak had confirmed with Sigwald that his outer surface was made of the 12
th
element but
still
wasn’t sure whether the magnesium was a covering like a space suit or whether Sigwald was some kind of intelligent machine. She didn’t want to give up any precedence with Keenar however. Trying for Keenar’s sneering tone Querlak said, “Why don’t
you
ask him?”

Keenar snorted
derisively, “You want me to learn his language before I can ask him any questions?”

“No
!” Querlak said vehemently, “I want you to acknowledge Osnak’s precedence. I discovered him. I’ve been working for days to learn just a
little
of his language.”

Keenar turned his gaze back to Sigwald contemplatively. A moment passed. “Would Osnak clade like to join Delnitch clade?” he asked musingly.

A shiver burst over Querlak’s wings, her mouthparts suddenly dry. This was an offer that perhaps couldn’t be refused. She could feel excitement ringing through her TS and out into the clade. “Osnak doesn’t have a current mating permit,” she said slowly, trying not to pant from the emotions resonating around her clade. Some members were horrified at the thought of submerging themselves in Delnitch, others ecstatic over the opportunity. Their powerful emotions resounded in Querlak like thunder.

“That can be arranged,” Keenar said beginning to walk around Sigwald.

Querlak felt disgust at this open admission that mating permits could be obtained outside the regulations by the more powerful clades. Still, if Osnak joined such a mighty clade… Querlak shook herself, “It could not be you and I. We are here on the ringworld,” she said referring to their currently infertile state.

“Of course not. Delnitch has sent Ezan with a permit to the home of your Nonas. Nonas will breed her and we will be joined.”

Feeling as if she were in turbulent air Querlak said, “When will she be fertile?”

“She is fertile now.”

With a tremulous sigh Querlak said, “When they have mated, I will answer your questions.” It would only be days until a connection formed between Delnitch and Osnak through the fetus of Ezan and Nonas. At that point there would be no secrets between them anyway.

Having finished a circuit of Sigwald, Keenar said, “Tell it that I will examine it now.”

Querlak stepped between Keenar and Sigwald. “I will
ask
if you may examine it. I have worked for days to establish a friendly relationship. Your first act will
not
be to destroy that relationship.”

Keenar snorted, “If it doesn’t want to tell us what we want to know, we’ll
make
it tell us.”

“Spoken like a sigma from an overlarge clade. Your kind always thinks they can demand whatever they want. Then take it by force if
refused! I remind you, this being traveled from another star to come here. You have
no
idea what power it may wield!”

Keenar stared at Sigwald as if considering
the possibility. He swayed his lower manipulators in a shrug, “I know that it’s covered itself in magnesium… which seems stupid.”

“It’s strong and light.”

“Magnesium doesn’t hold a candle to carbon in either area. I think this alien is
completely
ignorant of carbon manufacturing processes. Now you’ve been giving
that
secret away for free.”