lift whatever it needed to lift.
Like its flying cousin the EAHL, it could have comfortably walked right into the bay, latched onto one of the cargo ships that lay there with the spindly but powerful grapples that lined the underbelly of its body, and lifted it clear out of the water.
But unlike the EAHL, whose acronym had so easily become its moniker, the acronym GBHL gave little fuel for the imagination. So it had been dubbed, simply, Big Foot. Neal, with his astronomer’s penchant for Greek mythology, had pushed for naming it after the first of the Titans to add to his growing pantheon, but the team of military and civilian engineers that had worked on it had found it uninspiring, and he was, in truth, just fine with their final choice.
“jesus … h … christ,” he whispered to no one in particular as the beast clambered out of the Dome that had birthed it. Amadeu chuckled.
“My thoughts exactly,” Amadeu said, and they glanced at each other and grinned before staring back at the massive hulk once more.
It was not waiting around. It was already treading toward the water in great, powerful steps of its four huge legs, as though about to do just that theoretical thing Neal had used so many times in discussions of its planned use. But it was not going to pick up one of the ships there. That would have been both pointless, dangerous, and a strain on even its herculean strength.
It was going to do in a matter of days what it had taken the standard gantry cranes and loading bays two weeks to do.
They watched, grinning, as it stepped into the frigid waters, immune to their bitter cold, and moved over to one of the big ships. It straddled the ship it as though it was a kraken of legend, and Neal tried to imagine what it must feel like to be on the ship in question.
But it was not there to attack the hulking freighter, it was there to lighten its load, and as it moved over the ship, it aligned its body over the cargo containers that covered its decks. The stocky body, home to the fusion engines that pumped power to its four huge limbs, dipped down, the mandible limbs on its underbelly reaching out, and grasped up a stacked block of twenty containers, each laden with countless tons of raw materials.
They watched as it lifted the stack easily into the air, making light work of what it would have taken ten ordinary cranes an hour to do, and began to lumber back into the relatively shallow waters to shore.
“That is,” said Amadeu, “without doubt, the coolest thing I have ever seen!”
Amadeu turned to Neal, who nodded in agreement, then he smiled back at the arrayed engineers standing behind them, who were wondering, perhaps, what they were doing there. But they nodded their agreement with the young boy’s sentiment, adding their own sycophantic enthusiasm.
Amadeu smiled once more and turned back to the show.
- - -
With the team leads sent back to their jobs, and Amadeu left to his devices as he alternately watched Big Foot or stepped virtually into it to join Mynd, Moira, and the team controlling the massive device, Neal and William walked away from shed.
They were elated. It was a good day, one of many they had enjoyed since the battle at Rolas. Not sweet enough to fully eradicate the bitterness of that terrible defeat, but enough for genuine happiness to show on Neal’s face.
“This will change everything here,” William said.
“Of course,” replied Neal, “loading times will be cut in half.”
It should have been their first project with the Dome, and in a perfect world it would have been, but the need to get the first Skalm airborne, and then to get the EAHL ready so it could help rethread their elevator to space had necessarily taken precedence.
“Less than half, in fact,” said William. “But the real benefit will come with unloading.”
Neal nodded appreciatively. Getting the huge finished products out of the Dome had proven even harder than getting the raw materials in, and they had
Like its flying cousin the EAHL, it could have comfortably walked right into the bay, latched onto one of the cargo ships that lay there with the spindly but powerful grapples that lined the underbelly of its body, and lifted it clear out of the water.
But unlike the EAHL, whose acronym had so easily become its moniker, the acronym GBHL gave little fuel for the imagination. So it had been dubbed, simply, Big Foot. Neal, with his astronomer’s penchant for Greek mythology, had pushed for naming it after the first of the Titans to add to his growing pantheon, but the team of military and civilian engineers that had worked on it had found it uninspiring, and he was, in truth, just fine with their final choice.
“jesus … h … christ,” he whispered to no one in particular as the beast clambered out of the Dome that had birthed it. Amadeu chuckled.
“My thoughts exactly,” Amadeu said, and they glanced at each other and grinned before staring back at the massive hulk once more.
It was not waiting around. It was already treading toward the water in great, powerful steps of its four huge legs, as though about to do just that theoretical thing Neal had used so many times in discussions of its planned use. But it was not going to pick up one of the ships there. That would have been both pointless, dangerous, and a strain on even its herculean strength.
It was going to do in a matter of days what it had taken the standard gantry cranes and loading bays two weeks to do.
They watched, grinning, as it stepped into the frigid waters, immune to their bitter cold, and moved over to one of the big ships. It straddled the ship it as though it was a kraken of legend, and Neal tried to imagine what it must feel like to be on the ship in question.
But it was not there to attack the hulking freighter, it was there to lighten its load, and as it moved over the ship, it aligned its body over the cargo containers that covered its decks. The stocky body, home to the fusion engines that pumped power to its four huge limbs, dipped down, the mandible limbs on its underbelly reaching out, and grasped up a stacked block of twenty containers, each laden with countless tons of raw materials.
They watched as it lifted the stack easily into the air, making light work of what it would have taken ten ordinary cranes an hour to do, and began to lumber back into the relatively shallow waters to shore.
“That is,” said Amadeu, “without doubt, the coolest thing I have ever seen!”
Amadeu turned to Neal, who nodded in agreement, then he smiled back at the arrayed engineers standing behind them, who were wondering, perhaps, what they were doing there. But they nodded their agreement with the young boy’s sentiment, adding their own sycophantic enthusiasm.
Amadeu smiled once more and turned back to the show.
- - -
With the team leads sent back to their jobs, and Amadeu left to his devices as he alternately watched Big Foot or stepped virtually into it to join Mynd, Moira, and the team controlling the massive device, Neal and William walked away from shed.
They were elated. It was a good day, one of many they had enjoyed since the battle at Rolas. Not sweet enough to fully eradicate the bitterness of that terrible defeat, but enough for genuine happiness to show on Neal’s face.
“This will change everything here,” William said.
“Of course,” replied Neal, “loading times will be cut in half.”
It should have been their first project with the Dome, and in a perfect world it would have been, but the need to get the first Skalm airborne, and then to get the EAHL ready so it could help rethread their elevator to space had necessarily taken precedence.
“Less than half, in fact,” said William. “But the real benefit will come with unloading.”
Neal nodded appreciatively. Getting the huge finished products out of the Dome had proven even harder than getting the raw materials in, and they had
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