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Stories from the Verse
In Verse Proportion
Chapter 121: Kondor 215
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Brown 233
Kondor and Zeke, both using the psionic translation skill they had learned from Lauren, immediately threw themselves into the electronics development. Zeke, a trained radio technologist from his home world, pointed them to tungsten as the filament for light bulbs, and then they started working on developing vacuum tubes. They explained that these would be essential for moving forward, an important invention because of their use in other inventions yet to come. Zeke started on one of those, radio transmitters and receivers. He also got them working on electronic amplification, which he noted would be needed for radios but would also be useful for increasing the range of their telephone systems. Progress on these was slow, however, because they needed functioning vacuum tubes to make them work.
Kondor helped with these, but in this Zeke was the expert. Thus he focused on the development of transistors, which he explained would replace vacuum tubes in many applications eventually, and also worked on other semiconductors such as diodes.
“Why is it,” one of the birds asked, “that you know so much about these, but not how to make them?”
“Simple,” he replied. “In the worlds in which I learned these, they are so primitive they are rarely used like this. Eventually I will teach you to make integrated circuits, but to get there you need to understand all of these components, and build lasers and computer control systems, and learn how to etch components like these into tiny chips of silicon in layers. So what I am teaching you how to make now at sizes you can make by hand and with simple machines, eventually you will learn to make in microscopic circuits on tiny chips of material. That part I know readily, but you have to learn so much to get to that part, and I have to work backwards to what it is you can do with what you already have.”
They did not discuss their guns with anyone. Kondor was still uncomfortable with sharing advanced military technology with them, and Zeke was entirely focused on the fact that his electronics knowledge, which amounted to nothing in the Arabian world, was here cutting edge science.
Seeing what they were doing, the Dean readily approved building another nest for them, and since it was autumn already he put a rush on it. Slade recommended a few improvements on the heat and hot water systems that had been installed in his home, and of course the floor plan was designed to accommodate them. Slade also ordered bunk beds that would split into twins for his guests. Both of them having been military, they were fine with the concept of bunks. This took a couple weeks, again as everything about them had to be custom made to accommodate their size, including the bedding, but Slade said that whenever their house was ready they could take the beds with them, saving time on furnishing the home.
The new nest was about forty yards from Slade’s, which he joked was a lot closer to his neighbors than the last home he owned, which was a castle in the center of his own fief, but they didn’t mind. It was going up swiftly.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with twenty other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #452: Versers Ready. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
