#45: Banana Slug -Sea Trials

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After lunch the next day the small group met at the docks near the Banana Slug’s pod-bay doors, the mouth that is. They met Tommy, Sally, some friends and their parents as they were leaving. The kids seemed to be happy. The adults seemed to be in shock.

That was a bad sign.

Cody immediately launched into instructor mode.

“So what Tommy figured” Cody said, “was to cheat.”

Shelby looked at the young boy with new appreciation. Not only was it a good idea to cheat, or rather to not reinvent the wheel, but Cody was giving credit where credit was due rather than taking it for himself. “Tommy’s right. There’s no need to reinvent something that’s already been invented some where else. Cheating, as you say, is a perfectly valid design tactic.”

“We decided not to consider it to be ‘boat design’’ Cody said “That was too limiting. What we want is something that moves through the water that we can ride in, right?”

“Yes we do.” Shelby agreed “I see your point”

“We aren’t limited to any one type of construction technique or materials. We grow things out of SSmoke and control them by using Neuro-Loop brain interfaces.” Cody continued.

Shelby nodded

“The SSmoke is powered by integral NStat Fusors so we’ll never run out of power, right?” Cody continued

Shelby nodded. “You will be limited to the amount of power you can draw at any given time, much like a pond that only has a limited amount of water in it. You can draw it down, but that power is constantly being refilled, much as a spring fed pond would be.”

“So that means we’re not limited to Sails, Oars, Internal Combustion engines or Steam engines for power” Cody Continued. ”We can shape the SSmoke in any way we want consistent with it’s limitations. We can have active fins, tails or wings. Right?”

“Yes I believe that’s all true. I think I see where you’re going with this but please continue” Shelby and everyone else were grinning.

“So we cheated. Nature has been building ‘swimmers’ for millions of years. A lot of them have gone extinct but many haven’t. Why not use the design of something that’s lasted a long, long time? That would be an indication that it’s a good design wouldn’t it?” he finished. It was obvious that he’d practiced his presentation.

“That would be true. If we’re not cheating, we’re not trying. Cheat anyone except the Tribe. Don’t cheat the Tribe.” Shelby repeated. He was proud of that boy.

“So what are you copying?” He asked.

“ Rays” Cody said ”They were old before dinosaurs were new. We copied their design and built a great many tele-operated models to experiment with a lot of features. Rays are common in all the warm waters of the ocean and are even found in some rivers. The form factor works well.”

“Finally just as we were about ready to make one man rated, Naomi, Julie and the baby showed up on our radar. They needed something that moved. We had something we wanted to try out. We felt we needed a multi-passenger model. There were two of them, so we built it very large, as large as a cabin cruiser.

It seems to be working for them so we built something similar for ourselves. Not quite the same thing. Julie and Naomi live in theirs...ours is more of a bus, just transportation. Theirs has a very different layout on the inside but the propulsion is the same.

We had decided on a variant of

He waved toward a slip in the pod-bay. Sure enough, it held something shaped much like a Manta Ray. “ This one is much larger than a real Manta.”

When they reached the slip in which the MantaBoat was berthed it opened it’s mouth. Quite wide actually. In other circumstances it might have been alarming.

“Enter through the open mouth, pick a seat. They’re all the same.” Cody instructed. They did as he said. He gave them the VR access code.

“Cody, you drive first.” Chad said “Get us clear of the Banana Slug, then everyone else can take a turn at the wheel as much as they want.”

He spoke metaphorically. There was no wheel. The controls and sensors were neurologically inductive. The pilot’s POV was what the animal, if it had been alive, might have seen. The POV of the passengers gave the impression of being a passenger, somehow.

In other words, they could see in all directions. The only limitation was due to the clarity of the water. Oddly enough they could see further underwater than they could on the surface. The fog was THAT thick.

............

The manta flew slowly

away from the Banana Slug. It skimmed the river bottom. Everyone took turns driving.

The Manta

was as fast and as agile as it’s namesake, and as silent.

“See how it works everyone?” Chad said. “This thing, as is, can stay out longer than you want to. It can travel as fast and further than a typical boat. It uses it’s tail whip as an extended siphon to suck air out of......yadda yadda yadda...GREAT Detail.”

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The Next Episode Is
#46:Banana Slug -Did I hear a 'but'…
The Previous Episode was
#44: Banana Slug - Coffee Briefing…
The First Episode was
# 1 : Prologue…
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Book One: SoulStone
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