#116: Daniel Freemartin - Boat Sale

..............................................................................................................................................

“Be careful of the step” Wilbur said as he directed Daniel FreeMartin into the carbon harvester.

“Wow” Daniel said “I’ve never seen anything like this, not really.”

“Well yeah” Wilbur said. “This is only the third one we’ve built. The first one was much larger. We just sent out an even larger one YET, a crew served model. This is the single operator version.

“It looks something like a cuttlefish on the outside except for the big mouth. Rather like a catfish with tentacles perhaps?” Wilbur said nervously. Wilbur didn’t deal well with people, not really. By all rights Cody should be handling sales. Or Carl...or Karl. But Cody had a prior engagement, and Carl/Karl seemed to be having Fox problems. So Wilbur was stuck. “There’s a reason for that. It’s a very versatile design. We think it’s even better than the earlier Manta.”

“Not that I should complain” Daniel said “I don’t know much about boats. The only time I’ve ever been on the water much was in a kayak for a while and after that my omni-suit in rescue mode.”

Wilbur nodded his head in agreement “The omni-suit. One of our very first designs. It too, suites it’s purpose ver well doesn’t it?”

“I’d SAY so!” Daniel replied “It kept me alive.”

“You are familiar with SSmoke then.” Wilbur continued. He was back in familiar territory. Tech..he could talk tech to anyone. “That’s good. I build with SSmoke but I always put function over form. Our first build in this class has functioned flawlessly. There’s a guy south of here who’s been using it for months. ”

“I think the best way to resolve many of your questions is to go for a demonstration ride.” Wilbur said.

“Works for me.” Wilbur and Daniel got in and made themselves comfortable. It was rather startling at first that the entrance hatch was also the mouth. Entering the craft was somewhat like being swallowed by a monster.

“Tune to channel 007 so you ca see out.“ Wilbur glanced at Daniel. Daniel had a silly grin on his face. Was something wrong?

Actually Daniel was grinning because of the name assigned to the vision channel. ‘007’ for heavens sake. Cute. He was a bibliophile and preferred the Classics.

“If you’re ready to go?” he asked Daniel.

Daniel nodded. “Here we go”

The harvester moved slowly away from the dock.

“You’ll notice the trailing edges of the wings?” Wilbur said.

Daniel looked more closely. “It’s rippling.”

“Yup. I call it the ripple rouser” Wilbur replied with a smile. “It’s great for very close-in work and slow maneuvering, totally safe too. A child could swim into it and not be injured. It’s much safer than a propeller or even a water-jet. Quieter . We’ll use it to get clear of the Pod Bay.”

Exiting the bay took but a few moments. Daniel gasped.

“Is there a problem?” Wilbur asked with some concern. He didn’t want his first customer stroking out on him or something.

“It’s magnificent” Daniel said. “For something so large it moves effortlessly. It’s smooth. It doesn’t jerk or bump.”

“Pretty cool huh?” Wilbur said “Now that we’ve cleared the Slug we’ll ease up the speed just a notch. It has dual propulsion just like it’s name sake. It not only flaps it’s skirt it has a water jet although it’s quite a bit more capable than that of a real cuttlefish, octopus or squid.”

Daniel felt himself pushed back into his seat. This boat could GO!

“A real life cephalopod can only use it’s water jet in spurts” Wilber said “ We’re under no such limitation.”

Daniel felt continuous acceleration. Soon they were moving as fast as any natural sea creature.

“Notice the view?” Wilbur said “Right now, due to the fog, the surface view is a combination of sonar and radar. You see it as if were daylight. That fog is letting up some. It’ll be much nicer when the damn stuff finally goes away.”

Daniel nodded...he’d had his fill of fog.

“Due to optics we can see underwater when the need arises, fairly clear down to about a hundred and twenty five feet using light. The built in electronics provides color compensation other wise we’d be seeing in blue. The sonar return is also ‘massaged in’ by the computer. Beyond that depth we use headlights along with the sonar. Works just fine as deep as we can go. This is, after all, a river, not the deep blue sea.

The further away they got from the Banana Slug the faster they went. Wilbur put it through a high speed agility routine. It did everything acrobatic including jumping out of the water. It glided fairly well in the air too.

“This thing can out run any fish we’ve seen by a large margin. It’s the fastest thing in the River.” Wilbur said.

“It’s tentacles are handy for catching fish . That makes it handy when chasing lunch but they have another function.
They can morph into the optimum hydrodynamic shape at high speed.” he said. “That speed and the reach of those two long ones insure that you’ll never lack for food if there’s anything there.”

The cuttlefish had additional capabilities. Wilbur was saving that for just the right moment.

“Wow” Daniel said “How far can it go at this speed?”

“There’s two answers to that question” Wilbur grinned. Now to show off.

“It’s technical. The core power of the Demo, just like the full size version, is derived from NSat Fusors that are inherent to the SSmoke that it’s built from. They are everywhere, millions of them. Each one has a tiny max output due to their microscopic size. The power is stored in Graphene SuperConductor/Batteries(SCB). As long as we suck out less energy from the SCB’s than the Fusors can replenish, we’re good to go forever. The Fusors are fueled by water vapor. Comes out’a the air.” Wilbur said.

“blink Forever?” Daniel said.

“Yup, at slower speeds, about thirty knots, there’s no need to stop. As far as your question about how fast? As best we can tell if it stays in the water it can chase down a black marlin. They’ve been clocked at 80mph. We can’t push it that fast for very long. The power drain is too great. Call that Top Military Speed. Top sustainable speed, I guess you could call that cruising speed, is about fifty knots, but it eventually drains the power too. It can cruise at about thirty knots indefinitely. Not bad huh? ”

“blink_blink What do you mean by ‘still in the wa’.....” Daniel started to say.

The harvester jumped out of the water again. It glided in the air for a bit while configuring into skimmer mode. Then it touched down soft as a mother’s kiss. They didn’t feel a bump, so smoothly and seamlessly had it transitioned from swimming in the water to skimming across the surface on foils.

“Of course in this configuration we can go WAY fast.” Wilbur grinned evilly He ramped the speed up. It felt REALLY fast so close to the surface of the water.

Daniel was grinning from ear to ear. “Is there still any ‘there’ there?”

“Yup. It can go faster.” Wilbur demonstrated and the speed increased quite a bit “Cody said something about air injection to prevent cavitation. I dunno what all that means really. He designs them, I just build them.”

“ How long can it do this?” Daniel asked

“Dunno” Wilbur said nonchalantly. “The boat down south has never been pushed to it limit as far as I know...not by half ....in fact I don’t think it’s ever been in hydroplane mode. I will say that water is a thousand time denser than air. It takes less energy to skim ‘slow’ than it does to swim fast.”

Daniel thought about it. He grinned even broader if that were possible.

“I’ll take it” he said

“I kinda figured you would.” Wilbur told him “One more thing”

Suddenly Wilbur was as serious as a heart attack in an old folks home.” You can use the fabricator to make anything it’ll let you make. However...if it says ‘NO’...that means no. Some things it’s not allowed to make. It’s not allowed to make another fabricator for example. You can make another ship but it can’t have a fabricator in it. You’re lease purchasing the ship but only leasing the fabricator. I want to make this absolutely clear. If you try to go around the prohibitions it’ll explode like an atom bomb. Still want it?”

Daniel was a bit taken by by Wilbur’s change of demeanor..but it didn’t last long. “Fine by me. I’m not any kind of a designer or mechanic anyway. I just use tools I don’t make them. “

“Just so you understand.” Wilbur said. “Seriously?”

Daniel nodded.

Then Wilbur said. ”Now all we need to do figure out the fiddly bits. This is just the shell. We still got some more stuff to install. How big do you want your shower , a jacuzzi? A grill? Do you want a microwave oven? A convection oven? ”

Daniel was shell shocked. “It’s got a Shower? And MicroWave oven?”

“Well Yeah!” Wilbur acted surprised. “Of course it will. It will also have a refrigerator, a freezer, and a water purification plant. It won’t have a brewery though, or a still. Pity that. You can install them if you desire. There might be build plans for that. You fit it out anyway you want to.”

“As long as you don’t mess with the fabricator” he was serious again.

“Yeah.” he said “Let’s do that. Let’s take care of the Fiddly Bits.”

Wilbur grinned and sent the Dragon Lady a text.

“Sold one.” he said.

........................
The Next Episode Is
#117: Naomi - Release the Guilt…
The Previous Episode was
#115: Henry Drake : I intend to get her back…
The First Episode was
# 1 : Prologue…
..............
Book One: SoulStone
..................................................
I'm

@everittdmickey
.
I write
SPECULATIVE FICTION
My books on Amazon.
I engage in political commentary
and
generally talk about anything that strikes my fancy
on
Steemit
and
Sola

When watching the LameStream FakeNews Media

it's hard to tell what’s true or when they are lying isn’t it? It seems that they are more interested in influencing public opinion than they are reporting the facts.
SteemPunk Snail Image from Pixabay