Wolf Tech 7 - The Cats

Chapter 11

Lea woke a moon after they started to teach the cats. They were like a sponge for the knowledge. In the moon, they had moved out of the Bronze-age and past up to the Iron age, and up to what Fast Paws could give them hints of. The amount of information they were giving was fairly low, unless they asked for details beyond what was in the textbooks. A few had asked about how to make metals, and items like swords, and the pack metalsmith, Siegward, had sent Gurd, one of his helpers to teach the basics of metalcraft, knowing that by the time they were done learning the basics, they would need to come down to learn in the smithy.

The plan for today was the technology of steam trains, as they hadn't yet explored internal combustion or electricity. She had planned it out as if they were in a time machine, and it had sped over the centuries since they came to this continent, giving glimpses of the highlights. Starting at the industrial revolution, she had slowed the rate and started covering more.

She had arranged for an order to get electrical lights with a solar and wind generation with a storage array for the pack to be ordered. They were bringing the parts to the storage at the north end of Wild Valley, so that they could move them easily, when the time was right. She suspected it was only a week or two till then. Robin had also placed an order of basic waterproof laptops and ereaders for them, as it was likely to be only a week or two after that, they would be ready for the technology.

She planned to gloss over most of the technologies that were no longer in use. Hard drives were rarely used, instead they used various solid-state devices. The current technology even had gotten rid of the drive letters, as it wasn't uncommon to have more sources to spread data over and the operating system automatically handled it, in a way that if a drive failed, no data would be lost.

Pulling out a small toy train, and some tracks, she had the very curious cats gathering close. She rarely had anyone skipping her training, as she made it interesting.

"OK, this is just a toy, but it uses the same technology that the big trains that you heard of. It's hard to bring a full-sized one here." Lea got the laugh she was looking for. A few had followed the rumours and had seen the trains from the mountain peaks.

She had a few pups lay out the track and connect them together, "This is called the Track, and it helps keep the train working in the right way, so it only can go forward or backwards. There are parts for directing it between multiple tracks, called switches, but not needing to know how that works. Also, for controlling the trains, so they don't run into each other, there is a whole complex system that has grown up following crashes, that I'm not going over—unless you are involved, few know about them."

Several nodded to that as she put the train down on the track, "In basic, it uses something, depending on the version, to heat water—" she pulled out a water bottle, and poured water down into the boiler, "—to make steam." She turned a switch, that started an electric heater in it, "The first big ones used coal." They had already discussed fossil fuels and how they formed. As it started hissing and moving, many jumped, "When there is enough pressure, it is forced out a small hole, to push the part that is attached to the wheel, and when it hits the end, a hole lets it out, and the momentum pushes it back in." Picking up speed, it started to move around the small circle of track.

Lea move onto describing the parts of the piston, and how it worked, and how the train cars were just pulled along the track. Using a small one, she showed how it could transfer force to something else before they finished up the morning. The afternoon was several different 'classes'; one was gardening, another was working on forging metal. Others were for cooking, where they actually did the work to make an evening meal for their packmates, under Karen's watchful eye.