>"Maybe the government," Roy says. "They cover up lots of stuff, like >those UFOs." >With a slightly apologetic air, Hank adds "I don't know. No >organization _we_ belong to, at any rate". Galtheyn nods, as though the concept of governments covering up stuff is a familiar concept to him. >"Gasoline combustion engines. How do the ones here work?" Roy asks. "Not like that", Galtheyn replies, "Rulana wouldn't approve; she'd never let us get away with that. We use sealed power sources, and electric motors". >>"So long as we don't see any proprietary Trade Secrets. We wouldn't want to >>break any oaths of secrecy your people have sworn..." > >"Then we shall have to make sure that we don't let you see anything >too secret. Are you ready?". > "Yes, absolutely.", Hank replies. He shoulders his pack, which he'd not let out of eyeshot since he arrived. "You seem attached to your backpack", Galtheyn comments, "There's no need to carry it around all the time in here. What have you got in there?". He takes the pair of them down in a lift to the big ground floor warehouse they entered the night before. The big doors stand open now, with a view outside, mostly taken up by a large watercraft. The whole place is an underground cavern, cut out of the rock into the hillside. Several large openings wide enough to drive a vehicle through lead off in various directions. Galtheyn leads the pair through one of them. "This is the large vehicle repair shop", Galtheyn says. Before them stands an eight-wheeled chassis similar to that of the vehicle that carried them the day before. Several workers are lowering a large rectangular grey object into a space just about the size of that same large grey object, by means of a complicated array of pulleys and chains attached to a beam in the ceiling. "They're installing a new power source", he says, "We've already replaced all four traction motors; the old ones will be stripped down and reconditioned". Roy figures out how the motors are arranged; each one seems to operate one pair of wheels, through a complicated arrangement of gears. It appears all eight wheels are independently steerable. -- Tim Hall Weblog: http://www.kalyr.com/weblog Photos: http://kalyr.fotopic.net/
