Tau Ceti (an Ell Donsaii story #6) by Laurence Dahners Read Free Book Online

up to order materials and design the machining of parts.
    Ell reluctantly headed back to the offices. Wilson caught up to her, “Do you want me to be the bad guy? I’ve done it before and I don’t know her like you do.”
    Ell looked at him, sorely tempted. “No. I actually don’t want people to know what your secondary task is. Don’t want them trying to ‘work around you.’ And, believe it or not, I might not fire her.”
    Daster’s eyebrows went up. “ You’re kidding, s he’s been stealing from you!”
    “She’s a great employee.” Ell shrugged, “I think she deserves a second chance.”
    “ Okaaay .” Daster shrugged, “You’re the boss.”
     
    Ell knocked on Sheila’s doorframe and Sheila looked up saying brightly, “Come on in Bosslady.”
    Ell entered her office, closed the door and sat down, then she just stared at Sheila.
    A minute passed while the blood drained from Sheila’s face, then she crumpled, “I’m so sorry,” she gasped, “so sorry. I’ll be packed up in a minute.”
    Ell said, “What do you think I should do?”
    “You should c all the police. I’m hoping against hope that you’ll settle for just firing me… I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I love working here. You’re paying me more than anyone else ever would. My shares…” She blinked rapidly, then grabbed for a Kleenex.
    Intently focused on Sheila Ell said, “I’ll bet this isn’t the first time?”
    Sheila blew her nose, “First time I’ve gotten caught.”
    “So if we fired you, you’d probably just wind up preying on your next employer.”
    “I hope not. Course, I probably,” she choked a little, “probably I wouldn’t be able to get another job.”
    “Sheila, you’ve been a great employee. Probably one of the most important people we’ve had to making all of D5R work. I don’t want to ruin your life. I don’t want to send you out there to prey on someone else. So I’m going to offer you a chance to stay here…”
    Sheila’s eyes widened and she stared at Ell.
    “But, I suspect you have a personality disorder that compels you to do these kinds of things . Will you seek treatment?”
    Sheila nodded spastically, gulping.
    “And you have to be aware now that we’ve got systems in place to catch you if you do it again?”
    Sheila nodded again.
    “And you need to return everything you took, plus 10%?”
    “I will, Thank you, ” she whispered
    Ell nodded and got up. “I thought of you as a friend, and I still do. I hope you don’t make me regret this.”
    “No Ma’am.”
     
    When Ell got back to her office, Roger was waiting for her, “Hey, who shot your dog?”
    “Bein’ the boss shot my dog. Sometimes you have to make decisions that seem like they’re no win. Do you have another problem for me?”
    Roger grinned, “Nope, I’ve got an opportunity.”
    Ell closed her eyes momentarily , then opened them. “Power generation?”
    Roger narrowed his, “Yesss… W hat are you meaning by power generation?”
    “Your black pipes in close solar orbit. You want to squirt water in one end and harvest steam out the other end using ports, yes?”
    “Yeah! Did you have the same idea?”
    “Kinda. T here are issues though. You know that there is a velocity limitation to how fast stuff can pass through a port right?”
    Roger smacked his forehead, “Damn! And the steam would be flowing too fast when it exited the pipe . R ight?”
    “ Right .  Unless we have a really large diameter port for it to flow back through at a lower velocity , but then it’ll take a lot of power to energize the port.”
    Brow furrowing, Roger tilted his head back to stare up at the ceiling. “Wait! We could use a heat transfer fluid, like T herminol.” He brought his eyes back down to look at Ell.
    “Heat transfer fluid?”
    “Yeah, a fluid that wouldn’t boil at the temps we’re shooting for, say 340 degrees centigrade. Therminol is just one brand . We pump it through our black pipe in near solar