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“Horizontal? No,” Mr. Hargrave said. “It has to be vertical.”
“Oh! Vertical . . . ?” She was silent for a moment, and then her frown faded. “Yes, of course. It’s really quite simple,” she said. “You would have to construct a holding reservoir of some kind. Over the entire surface, of course. Airtight seal.”
“Why is that?” he demanded.
She nodded. “Yes, definitely, reservoir with a seal,” she said. “And then— Why? Quite simple—in order for the liquid to fully and evenly penetrate the surface. And then it would require enough time to—”
“How much time?” the man practically barked at her.
Professor Sabharwal frowned. “Variable. Anywhere from minutes to days. Would that be an important consideration, Mr. Hargrave?”
“It sure would,” he growled. “It’s gotta set and dry fast—minutes, not hours.”
“Uh-huh, I see,” she said. She frowned and looked off into space. “If I can get an absorption rate that . . . But no, that would mean— Mr. Hargrave, you say that this element of the structure—the infused element, once transformed into a malleable form—this must then be extracted from a standing structure and transported, and intact? Without damage?”
“Absolutely essential,” Mr. Hargrave said. “If it’s damaged, the entire project is a shipwreck. A total disaster,” he added, as if uncertain that she would know what “shipwreck” meant.
“Yes, of course,” she said, still frowning thoughtfully. “And this is of course the true conundrum. By changing the physical properties of the medium, you naturally also change—but wait a moment . . .”
Professor Sabharwal slumped over her desk for a moment and tapped her fingertips rhythmically. “Uh-huh, yes—which would require . . . Right,” she muttered to herself. And then, as if suddenly aware that someone else was present, she snapped her head up and smiled. “Difficult, Mr. Hargrave. Very, very difficult. But with a certain amount of— It would require, ah . . .” She waved a hand, as if dispelling a cloud of noxious fumes. “Yes, I think it could be done.”
“You think,” he said, and now he was frowning, too.
Professor Sabharwal took a breath. This was not a time for shyness or modesty. It was the opportunity she’d hoped for her entire career. But to promise results, with something this radical—it was risky, and it was not the kind of risk she was comfortable taking. But that check . . . She swallowed and reinforced her smile. “The problem is achieving any flexibility at all,” she said. “The plaster itself is rigid, of course. But it is also semipermeable? So the polymer would have to infuse the plaster to an extent that would fundamentally modify the—oh! What depth of infusion might be required?”
Mr. Hargrave stared as if he was having trouble following her. “What—depth?”
“Yes, of course, what depth must the polymer penetrate into the plaster for best results, in whatever your— Mr. Hargrave, it would all be a great deal easier if you would simply tell me what you’re trying to accomplish here.”
Hargrave’s face lost all of its uncertainty and set in stern lines. “No, absolutely not,” he said. “That’s entirely confidential—and I must demand that as part of this project, you keep the entire process to yourself, Professor. If any word of this got out to our competitors . . .” He shook his head and looked even more serious. “It all has to stay secret. Or it’s no deal.”
“Of course, that’s not a problem at all,” she said. “But I do need to know a number of technical parameters—and the depth of infusion is an extremely important consideration.”
“Yes, naturally, I can see that,” he said. “Let’s say—two to three inches?”
Professor Sabharwal hissed out a breath between her teeth. “Two to three— That would require an extremely fluid solution—very volatile. And then it would have to set, rather abruptly, transforming in the drying process to an elastic solid—difficult.”
“Just idle curiosity, Professor,” Hargrave said. “If I painted your solution over a drawing my daughter made, on, let’s say, a plaster wall—would this stuff preserve it?”
Professor Sabarwhal cocked her head at him. “What an odd idea,” she said. “Yes, I suppose. Yes, actually it should. But why—”
“So the final product is a fixative as well as a flexible preservative,” he said.
“Yes, I think that’s accurate,” she said. “But a polymer with those properties is entirely unprecedented. I don’t know, I’m not sure that—”
She heard a tapping noise and looked at Mr. Hargrave. He was very pointedly tapping his finger on the check and regarding her with a raised eyebrow. Professor Sabharwal got the hint. So she said a quick prayer, crossed her fingers, and plunged ahead. “Yes, I can do it,” she said. “Absolutely.”
Hargrave looked at her, hard, for what seemed like a long time. He finally nodded, reached out a finger, and pushed the check across the lab table, closer to her. “Good,” he said. “I need it in three months.”
“Three—that’s absurd!” she said, shocked by the idea. It would take her three months just to find a cross-linking agent she could modify to impart flexibility, and—
“Is it really?” Hargrave asked, raising an oversized eyebrow. “Is it still absurd if I double the check?”
Professor Sabharwal gulped, her head spinning. That much money . . . And to create a revolutionary new polymer on top— “I can do it,” she said, and she devoutly hoped she could.
Hargrave smiled for the first time. “Of course you can,” he said. He held out a hand and took hers, shook it. “It’s going to be great doing business with you, Professor Sabanail.”
She didn’t correct the way he mispronounced her name. She was too busy smiling back and mentally making a list of the equipment she would buy with all that money.
