It had taken slightly over a month to build; B-Haaq had grudgingly granted him all the time he estimated he'd need, but he'd hurried nonetheless—sixteen, sometimes eighteen hours at a stretch.
Yet the work had not been difficult. As he'd tooled and formed the simple, compact parts and watched his creation grow steadily from one day to the next, he had marvelled that certain self-evident innovations of design had not been adopted years before. It was not, he knew, that he was so much cleverer than they! Rather, it was almost as though such improvement had been deliberately avoided. And ITA space drives had remained cumbersome, overly-complex and unwieldy.
He straightened from his work. It was done, and the ships of the Intergalactic Technical Alliance would be caught up a solid century at least! He had now only to request an installation crew of labortechs, supervise for a few hours, and then—
"Master Kane!"
The startled cadtech snapped to immediate attention. It was B-Haaq. He had entered the workshop without signalling.
"Yes Sire!"
"I must make a report of your progress to the Gentech's headquarters." He spoke levelly, but Kane could feel the resentment in his voice.
"My work is completed, sire. I was at this moment preparing to summon a labortech installation crew, and to supervise—"
"I'll do the summoning, Master Kane! And the supervision! I don't believe it necessary to remind you that even if you have refused your commission, I accepted my own quite some time ago! This mechanism is completed, you say?"
"Yes, sire. I hope that I shall be permitted to pilot—"