confidants regarded him much as they always had: as a dedicated, maybe even courageous man who had spearheaded Earth’s resistance to the coming threat, but who was, in the end, still just a chubby balding man in his late thirties who didn’t have much outside of his work other than a paunch.
As for the young man he was with, wunderkind inventor of the famous spinal interface, he was almost as famous within the taskforce’s circles. And then if you added the bionic man they all called boss, it really was too much for the gathered group.
So they stayed in mute silence, awkward really, but happy to be here, in the presence of what they perceived as greatness.
“OK, that looks very promising, indeed,” said Neal, rubbing his hands together as he reemerged from his link into the machine.
“Oh yeah, Neal,” replied Amadeu, clearly still linked in, his eyes closed. “It really does, doesn’t it.” The boy beamed. “This is going to be so very, very cool.”
And it really was.
Without much in the way of warning, the process came to a close and the ground rumbled slightly as the seal on the great Dome above and in front of them was cracked. It was a long, slow process as they went to open the segmented top half of the Dome, but unlike previous openings, they would not then have to wait for the massive gantry cranes that lined the ground around the Dome to unload its contents.
For where the Skalm and EAHL had needed to be lifted clear of the Dome’s fragile and exorbitantly expensive golden inner-surface before igniting their engines, today’s child of the Dome would require no such assistance.
“If you will excuse me, gentlemen, I must commune with Moira to help with the engine start and unloading.” said William, to nods from both Amadeu and Neal.
As William virtually departed the space once more, the two other men, different in both age, background, purpose, and personality, but identical in the childlike expectation that filled their faces, stood and walked to the thick windows of the room to gaze up at the rim of the Dome’s bottom half.
It was showing like the brim of a giant goblet now, viewed from beneath, like it was about to spill its contents across the wide flat peninsula it dominated.
The world seemed to hold its breath, or at least it did for Neal and Amadeu, as they looked upwards.
They waited.
Then they saw it; a great, three-pronged foot, rising up and over the edge of the dome.
It was on the end of a leg, a long, thin leg, more an outline than a solid form, a framework of nanotube spars, strung with great cables that were its spiderweb tendons. It kept coming. The foot alone must have been ten meters across, indeed they knew it was, at some level, but for now they stared at it with a joy untempered by fact. They looked at it with the eyes of the children they had once been, children who had played with Lego and Transformers. That had dreamed of the very machines they were now building.
But this was no flight of fancy, and it was not so esoteric or scary as the Skalm. This was just, plain, awesome …
The leg continued coming, reaching up and over the brim, and they saw what they thought was the knee, then realized it was just an ankle, as the main bulk of the huge limb filled the sky above their suddenly diminutive shed.
As the huge foot came to ground, they watched as its three toes and giant ankle flexed, absorbing the impact as the ground shook with the massive footfall. But no sooner was the foot firmly planted than another was rising up and over the Dome’s rim to join the first.
And as this second huge leg came up and over, the main body of the machine started to heave into view as well. Soon the full scale of the Ground Based Heavy Lifter became clear, a reality to match the drawings they had all seen and tried to picture.
It was, at its core, a crane on four legs, or rather a crane with four legs, for the legs were both its means of mobility and the way by which it would
As for the young man he was with, wunderkind inventor of the famous spinal interface, he was almost as famous within the taskforce’s circles. And then if you added the bionic man they all called boss, it really was too much for the gathered group.
So they stayed in mute silence, awkward really, but happy to be here, in the presence of what they perceived as greatness.
“OK, that looks very promising, indeed,” said Neal, rubbing his hands together as he reemerged from his link into the machine.
“Oh yeah, Neal,” replied Amadeu, clearly still linked in, his eyes closed. “It really does, doesn’t it.” The boy beamed. “This is going to be so very, very cool.”
And it really was.
Without much in the way of warning, the process came to a close and the ground rumbled slightly as the seal on the great Dome above and in front of them was cracked. It was a long, slow process as they went to open the segmented top half of the Dome, but unlike previous openings, they would not then have to wait for the massive gantry cranes that lined the ground around the Dome to unload its contents.
For where the Skalm and EAHL had needed to be lifted clear of the Dome’s fragile and exorbitantly expensive golden inner-surface before igniting their engines, today’s child of the Dome would require no such assistance.
“If you will excuse me, gentlemen, I must commune with Moira to help with the engine start and unloading.” said William, to nods from both Amadeu and Neal.
As William virtually departed the space once more, the two other men, different in both age, background, purpose, and personality, but identical in the childlike expectation that filled their faces, stood and walked to the thick windows of the room to gaze up at the rim of the Dome’s bottom half.
It was showing like the brim of a giant goblet now, viewed from beneath, like it was about to spill its contents across the wide flat peninsula it dominated.
The world seemed to hold its breath, or at least it did for Neal and Amadeu, as they looked upwards.
They waited.
Then they saw it; a great, three-pronged foot, rising up and over the edge of the dome.
It was on the end of a leg, a long, thin leg, more an outline than a solid form, a framework of nanotube spars, strung with great cables that were its spiderweb tendons. It kept coming. The foot alone must have been ten meters across, indeed they knew it was, at some level, but for now they stared at it with a joy untempered by fact. They looked at it with the eyes of the children they had once been, children who had played with Lego and Transformers. That had dreamed of the very machines they were now building.
But this was no flight of fancy, and it was not so esoteric or scary as the Skalm. This was just, plain, awesome …
The leg continued coming, reaching up and over the brim, and they saw what they thought was the knee, then realized it was just an ankle, as the main bulk of the huge limb filled the sky above their suddenly diminutive shed.
As the huge foot came to ground, they watched as its three toes and giant ankle flexed, absorbing the impact as the ground shook with the massive footfall. But no sooner was the foot firmly planted than another was rising up and over the Dome’s rim to join the first.
And as this second huge leg came up and over, the main body of the machine started to heave into view as well. Soon the full scale of the Ground Based Heavy Lifter became clear, a reality to match the drawings they had all seen and tried to picture.
It was, at its core, a crane on four legs, or rather a crane with four legs, for the legs were both its means of mobility and the way by which it would
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