Cast in Time: Book 4: Earl, page 1
Cast in Time
Book 4: Earl
By Ed Nelson
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my wife, Carol, for her support and help as my first reader and editor.
With special thanks to Ole Rotorhead for his technical insights on how things really work.
Then there are my beta readers: Ole Rotorhead, Lonelydad, Antti Huotari, Brent, Craig, and Don.
And never forget the professional editor: Morgan Waddle.
Quotation
According to "M" theory, ours is not the only universe. Instead, "M" theory predicts that a great many universes were created out of nothing.
Stephen Hawking
Copyright © 2023
E. E. Nelson
All rights reserved
Eastern Shore Publishing
2331 West Del Webb Blvd.
Sun City Center, FL 33673
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
ISBN 978-1-953395-86-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 20239124
Table of Contents
Contents
Cast in Time
Other books by Ed Nelson
Dedication
Quotation
Copyright © 2023
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Backmatter
Chapter 1
As I took stock of my first six years in this time, I decided I had to consolidate my gains. That still made sense. What didn't make sense, after mature thought, was the start of the Industrial Revolution.
The Industrial Revolution was the introduction of mass production. But we were lacking the workers to support mass production. More importantly, mass production meant exactly that. A lot of products would be produced. Our population wouldn't be able to absorb all the production.
Scratch that idea.
Filling in the technical gaps still made sense. We were using technology from the eighth century alongside the twentieth century.
Preserved foods were high on my list.
We had ice from the ice caves, but canning would strengthen our food chain. So far, we have been lucky not to have a bad growing season, but one could happen without warning. Canning was a must, both in mason jars and metal cans. That reminded me we had to invent the can opener.
Incubators were next on my list for small animals, such as baby chicks and sickly newborn infants. I called the babies sickly because I knew some babies needed incubators, but not why. I'm sure Baroness Agnes could tell me.
We had small stills in the lab and even larger ones in our pharmaceutical production buildings. What we didn't have were large alcohol production stills. We could make whiskey using wheat, rye, or barley and scotch using rye.
Corn, as I knew it, came from the Americas and wasn't available to us yet. It was the same reason we couldn't make vodka. Potatoes came from Chile. Even so, whiskey could be a huge export for us.
I thought it would be funny to teach the Scots how to make scotch. And I would insist on the correct spelling as whiskey, not whisky.
Not caring for gin, I didn't think about making any. I'm certain that someone would come up with it. They would also start distilling wine to make brandy. That I could take or leave.
Another important product to improve was paper. All we have is crude pulp. We needed smooth white paper for writing. And soft, smooth toilet paper. The stuff we had wasn't much better than the corncobs we used on the farm once all the pages from the Sears catalog were used up.
Then, we needed large transformers to introduce electricity on a useful scale. So we had to come up with a light bulb. Shades of Edison. At least we didn't have to go through the thousands of trials. Hundreds, probably, but still a lot less than his technicians. You didn't think old Tommy did all that work himself.
Improved batteries would be useful in many ways once the electrical age was started. We had large arrays of glass jars filled with acid chemicals. Wires linked them to act as batteries, or more like chemical generators, for telegraphic and radio transmissions. But we needed dry cell batteries in more portable form factors.
Flywheels. We had a start on them on our steam engines, but they could stand a lot of improvement.
Next up was the Pelton wheel. It would extract energy from the impulse of moving water, unlike water's dead weight as the traditional overshot water wheel.
The Pelton wheel would be the easiest of the changes to introduce. It was simply a different shape from the waterwheel now in use.
I didn't plan to be anything but an advisor on these projects. Some of our budding engineers were showing promise, so they were going to get a chance to show their stuff.
There was one project I was interested in. Making plastics from oil.
We were still using cow's milk to produce casein. But we didn't have enough cows to meet the potential need. Mirrors alone were taking all the casein production. And there weren't enough cows in the whole of England to meet the needs I foresaw.
We could now ship mirrors by sea to Constantinople. We always knew the route but had to fear pirates. With our new schooners to protect our ships, we no longer feared the sea route.
I had to chuckle. The Barbary pirates would think our ships were on fire when the cannons were first fired. They would see smoke and flames from ours as their ships exploded.
The many battles I had been in had warped my sense of humor. It's a wonder I wasn't a massive case of PTSD. I often thought there was something wrong with me. The carnage sickened me, but I never had nightmares about it.
The worst case of PTSD I had ever encountered was at home.
He was a Marine recruiter.
One of his duties was to attend the funerals of soldiers killed in Vietnam. He had to hand the flag to fifty-one sets of parents. Talk about stress. They hated him, and it radiated from them.
He finally asked to be relieved from that duty and requested a combat posting. He survived only to carry the guilt for many years.
In a way, I lightened my burden, realizing it could have been much worse for me. Others had suffered more. At least I could shoot back.
Getting my thoughts back on track, I mentally reviewed what had to be done to make polypropylene or polyethylene plastics. We had the basic technology in place to manufacture both. We just had to modify the process.
Molasses-like crude oil is heated over a furnace that separates the hydrocarbons into different groups. This is based on the number of atoms they contain and their resulting molecular weight. These are then put into a nearby distillation tube.
The crude is vaporized, and the vapors re-condense at different levels in the tower based on their molecular weight. We found the molecular weight by trial and error.
The longer, typically heavier hydrocarbons sink to the bottom of the tube, while the shorter, lighter ones rise to the top. The result is several distinct groups of chemicals for various uses.
One of these groups is naphtha, the primary feedstock for making plastic. It contains ethane and propane.
To be made into something that can be used to build plastic, ethane, and propane must be broken down from their raw hydrocarbon state into smaller units.
One method is applying high heat and pressure in a zero-oxygen environment. This process, called "steam cracking," breaks down the hydrocarbons into shorter molecules called monomers.
We could achieve the heat and pressure. But our challenge was zero oxygen.
The next step is polymerization. Then, you combine chemically individual monomer ingredients in new arrangements. Producing the long repeating chains known as polymers.
In this case, the most basic and widely used plastics are polyethylene and polypropylene from ethylene and propylene. Polyethylene's makeup allows it to be used to make different plastics. Polypropylene's configuration makes it particularly flexible and resilient.
The easiest method to create an oxygen-free environment requires palladium. Unfortunately, we don't have access to any and probably won't for a long time.
Another method is air circulating in a low-pressure loop at 200C, with two openings: one for introducing steam and another that allows excess gases to exit. Purging this loop with steam brings down the oxygen content of this loop to 0%.
So, all we had to do was separate the propane and ethylene, then place them
Now, I just needed to identify a newly graduated young person with an aptitude for chemical engineering. I knew one book that the engineer could use which had a clear and basic explanation of the processes as I had written it for one of my Ph.D. theses.
I visited a major oil refinery in Houston as part of my research. I must have been in my early thirties when I wrote it, so it was only seventy or so years ago. No wonder I only vaguely remembered the process.
The high school in Owen-nap had a heavy science curriculum. The teachers were barely a chapter ahead of their best students, but they were getting the job done. My first stop was the principal to ask about the best recent graduates. According to him, one young lady was head and shoulders above the rest in theoretical and practical engineering.
I arranged an interview with her and met her at her father's farm. She was mucking out stalls when I arrived. Our conversation revealed that she had been unable to find work outside of the farm.
It seems our educational system was running ahead of our skilled employment opportunities. There were plenty of openings in the traditional trades, such as tanning, blacksmithing, or butchering.
In the modern sciences, there were few openings.
I decided on the spot I would open a pure research center and employ every science graduate who showed any promise at all.
Her interview went great. It didn't take many questions for her to demonstrate a good understanding of chemistry. I had her describe the various experiments she had set up for her school projects and was impressed. They would have stood out in the twenty-first century.
Her father came in from the field to join us.
He was quiet and listened to my questions without trying to answer for his daughter.
That was until I told Evie that she would have to visit the oil refinery in Arette.
"Is it safe for a young lady to go to foreign places like that?" he asked.
"That is a good point. I hadn't thought of that. Five soldiers will accompany her as her bodyguard. She won't be the only young person on this trip."
I was winging it now.
"There will be at least two other technicians with her. She will be the lead, and they will be her assistants."
"I will have assistants?" Evie asked.
"Yes. There is no way you could do this all alone. You will supervise the collection of the propane and ethylene fractions. This will require the design and set-up of new collection columns.
“The staff should have a good handle on making the columns, but you will oversee the process. More importantly, you must test the product to ensure it is propane or ethylene. I will give you books describing all of this."
I continued, "I can't tell you how long you will be there, but it will be months, if not longer."
Her Dad cleared his throat but said nothing.
Evie took the hint. "What will this pay?"
"I was planning on two thousand a year for you and fifteen hundred each for the assistants."
Her Dad about fell over. This was more than ten times what he could make in a good year.
She couldn't accept the job fast enough.
"Your first task is to identify candidates for your assistants. Interview them and send me your selections to talk to and hopefully approve them.”
She looked at me questioningly.
"Yes, this is your first test. Find good candidates, not friends.
I will be here in Owen-nap for the next several weeks. Try to have the people identified by the end of next week. By the way, I don't care what sex they are. I just want the best.
"While you are doing that, I will select your escorts, send letters to Arette to notify them of this project and arrange transportation. Any questions?"
She appeared to be tongue-tied. So I told her father they could send a note to the Keep if they had questions.
Chapter 2
As I left the farmer's house, I had to chuckle. I had never seen anyone so gob-smacked, as my English friends used to say. I suppose they are still saying it somewhere, sometimes. That thought brought my laughter to a halt.
Trying to stay true to my plan of stepping back and delegating was proving difficult. I was short on middle management. I needed several people to oversee the various working groups I had established to bring our technology to a level playing field. The problem was that no large working groups required layers of management.
In the here and now, most management levels were one deep. A master and his apprentices. There might be a three-level organization, but I didn't know of it. Yes, the military met the multiple-level requirement. But few, if any, of them would have the technical training to oversee one of my groups.
Wait a minute.
There might be a few officers who fit the bill. We did have an Engineering Corps. Their officers would oversee building structures or, in the past, assembling catapults, laying out camps, etc.
While not educated in the sciences, they would know how to manage large groups with diverse tasks. Taking it one step further, we needed the civilian equivalent of Sergeants. These would be the group leaders reporting to the engineering officers.
Now that I had identified a potential source of project leaders, I had to find out what was available. That was the nice thing about having four stars on my uniform. Things would happen when I issued a request.
My requests were orders put politely.
Counting my plastic project, I had the need for nine project leaders and a tenth to oversee the other nine.
There were only seven engineering officers that could be spared. The captains couldn't be, but they had capable Lieutenants who could be given an early promotion.
I ended up putting distilling and preserved foods under one Captain. We understood distilling and only had to scale it up. Once up and running, making whiskey and other spirits were long-term projects since they had to age.
Flywheels and the Pelton turbine were also understood, so from that point of view, they wouldn't be that difficult. The only rub was that we needed both scaled up and available for use ASAP. I hadn't introduced ASAP as a term yet, but it was coming.
The incubators and batteries projects were assigned together. The incubators would be easy to build for various uses, while improved batteries would be a long-term project.
This new table of organization required five project leaders and a senior officer to oversee the whole shebang. I had seven candidates and needed six people, which was cutting it thin.
I was very lucky.
All seven candidates were qualified and had the right attitudes. So, I decided to use all seven. The extra man would be adjutant to the leader. This gave me a little depth in case someone dropped by the wayside.
These were all career people, so I gave them a written commitment if they returned to the military for any reason. They would be bumped a rank for every five years they served on the projects.
We might lose one or two at the five-year mark, but after that, their lives would be so settled, and their military experience so dated that none would go back. At least, I hoped it worked that way. If nothing else, we could always use another supply officer.
I was a little arbitrary in picking the overseeing officer. I picked the oldest one. He had a calm composure with steel in his backbone. His records substantiated that.
He had been a hell-raiser in his youth but settled down and had a good leadership track record. The General in charge of the military engineers told me he was due for promotion no matter what.
I didn't give anyone but him a promotion, jumping him to full colonel so he had the clout to get the job done. However, they all got a healthy pay raise outside the military pay scale. They were second to the project office and would be paid accordingly.
I had made an expensive error in paying Evie Farmer so much. It locked the pay scale in for Sergeants or specific project team leads, which had to be scaled up across all project teams. At least no Officer would want to go back to active duty and lose that pay rate.
After a week of interviews, I had my project team leadership in place. Other than Evie on the plastic project, there were no other team leaders yet chosen. That became the first assignment for my new leadership team.
