Before 24 Billion and Counting

Chapter 13 Part 2 Another model of the spaceship is discovered

Bob continued, "Chris used to come here in that big pick up of his and explain what he wanted. We finished the job but he only took delivery of half of it. We were paid, but we've still got the rest." 

"What rest?" I asked fascinated by the possibilities. 

"Vladik - " and Bob continued in Turkish. Vladik stood and said, "You seem to have reached your destiny - it was nice meeting with you. Bob will get you what you need."  

"Thank you Vladik - you've been really helpful." 

Bob said, "Look - we owe Chris some time. He paid us to do a job and booked and paid for some assembly time which we haven't done. I'd like to explain this to you. Vladik says you're working for his niece, and they were good people to work with, I think I met them once, a brother called Ben - yes?" 

I nodded - unable to say anything for fear of disturbing his slightest recollection. 

"I stayed there a day - he was writing a book about space structures or they formed some part of it. He and his brother showed me sketches of what they wanted, and they had made a china model of the components and how they wanted them to work. Then they said did I want a swim with the kids. I said yes, and we went for a drive to a lake. 

"Bloody hell, was he a frighteningly fast driver. Although he never bumped the pick up. Well actually he did, it was here in the car park, but he didn't realise we were shunting wagons, but that - was later. Anyway Chris said he knew we made turbine blades and he wanted the same degree of precision for the model, so there was to be only one long component and two types of corner or joining piece, and any component was to be completely interchangeable with any other. Well any one the same type that is. 

"He'd chosen an alloy we didn't normally use. It was more brittle and heavier than our usual heat resistant ones. But we got some from Rolls Royce in Canada. From then on it was a big machining job with a CNC milling machine. It cost him about $10,000. I think his wife was a bit shaken by the cost - but he said it was his insurance. 

"I never understood why he didn't make it out of plastic, because we could have made it for half the cost. Well to be honest I couldn't understand why he wanted it at all. We assembled a model and delivered it to him. He seemed slightly obsessed by the need to test something that was in the book he was writing. Do you know what that was Mr Berisford?" 

"Call me Charles," I said, "I don't know what drove him. I have a manuscript but although I can see the model in the story, or rather an imagined version of the real thing, I can't see why the model was needed. But I'm not convinced that I have the full manuscript yet. You keep implying that you didn't finish the contract. What do you mean?" 

"Well it was very sad. I boxed up the first delivery and sent it to the pottery. Mrs Williamson sent me a cheque signed by Chris, but in the letter she said thanks very much he had seen the model and had liked it but he was dying. The cheque was for the full amount of the contract. I wrote back to her and said I was sad about Chris, but we had another model to deliver. She wrote back a month later saying he'd gone and not to bother with the second one." 

"You mean there were supposed to be two?" 

"Oh yes he was very insistent on that. We have got the parts - we just didn't put it together. That's the assembly time we owe him. It isn't much, perhaps four's work for a competent mechanic. It doesn't need tools, just to be able to read the drawing and identify the parts and where they go." 

"Could Chris have done it?" 

"Oh without a doubt - he was first and foremost an engineer. The other things he could do sprang from a sense of what things were for."