Top chemist Pesia Zivertova demonstrated complete ignorance of all chemical matters, with the exception of extracting ethanol from mash and isolating americium and plutonium isotopes from waste.
Pesia confessed that she just followed the advices by the Interface of the Federal Library of Tartaria, trying to implement them in the best possible way.
Pesia sent Ben to the Norgi National Library; the interface there could answer questions better than Pesia herself.
Top Engineer Femistokl Zalupaev could talk of nothing but the installation of structures on permafrost. All of the Norga Warm company’s permanent structures were erected using the unique method he had mastered; costly, yet reliable: a massive reinforced-concrete base that floats at the frozen or marshy ground. A lightweight but strong multi-layered hangar is built above; it can withstand a snow layer several meters deep and hurricane-force winds.
The buildings had to maintain their structural integrity even in the event of total flooding followed by the area icing over, remaining atop the ice crust like an icebreaker in the Arctic Ocean. Alternative methods (specifically, piles frozen into the ground) were considered cheap but dangerous.
The most complex challenge was connecting the floating buildings to one another. The uneven relative shifting of the bases necessitated carefully engineered connection joints. In civilized countries, Zalupaev’s methods would have been deemed archaic and economically inefficient.
Ben hypothesized that such an approach was feasible only with state funding. Zalupaev agreed but emphasized that the method he uses is the only way to erect reliable structures in the north of Tartaria.
The conversation of Ben with the Top Technologist, Kolian Gopnik was not better. Kolian was with his roommate Valkiria. Presenting Valkiria, Tolian qualified her «A very commanding woman». Valkiria was ex-wife of Mozdok Tsuker and Top Psychologist of the Norga Warm.
Kolyan described the difficulty of striking a balance between the requirements by Pesia and capabilities pf Femistokl: Femistokl does not not allow the structure’s center of mass to rise above the metacenter of its base as it floated in the permafrost. Yet some structures still listed, threatening the entire project with failure.
Kolian told, how difficult is to keep the temperature stable (as Pesia insists), while the temperature outside can drop to -60 Celsius. And how the Samporats of the final rectification were mounted in the old adits within the rocky ridge.
Kolian told, how Valkiria helps him to find a compromise between demands by Pesia and restrictions by Femistokl.
Valkiria kept interrupting and skillfully steering the conversation to Ben himself and to the mentality of people of the Western Civilization. Ben realized that he is not skillful in the Female Logic.
Ben was about to fall out of the Journalist ethics: Ben felt the seduction to repeat words attributed to Nikita Khrushchev in the Soviet folklore: «Уберите отсюда эту голую Вальку!» ("Get this naked Valka out of here!").
Ben restrained himself and behaved with impeccable propriety, but Valkiria took offense. From her point of view, Ben hadn't paid her enough attention.
After the experience with Kolian and Valkiria, Ben decided to talk only on the narrow specific topic: event of extraction of the by-product Pu-239 in amount approaching the critical mass. This decision did not help Ben so much.
The Top Dosimetrist, Yuma Hahalev, used the standard free software getting and treating the data. She could not say anything interesting about the case: «Robot detected the increase of the flux of neutrons, and halted the process. There was no explosion, no one was injured.»
Yuma felt, that Ben dislikes her explanations. Trying to mitigate the fault,
Yuma had shown to Ben several exercises from book "Kurangita", including the «Carcass-on-spit» and «cat-licking-its-ass».
Yuma demonstrated exceptional flexibility, but her "exercises" are highly obscene, indecent, depraved, even masochistic.
Ben had confessed that the censorship will not allow him to describe her skills.
Ben managed to talk with Nata Kiskin. It turned out that Nata was a proponent of slavery.
Nata had a poem in Russian for every occasion. One of the poems was titled "Brave Athletes"; it described in detail how three strong men raped a heavy-set woman. The poem glorified these athletes and described the incident as a "romantic" event.
Nata wanted at least one of her poems to be published by the BBC. Being a polite person, Ben refrained from expressing his opinion on the Nata's poetry.
To Ben, the Norga Warm looked very strange. The company manufactures heaters for homes and buildings, and also produces the liquid and gas fuel for cars, flyers and electric power stations. On the other hand, the most of building and homes at the Norga Warm were heated by the wood-burning stoves. None of Ben's respondents had seen any paradox in this observation.
Ben felt as though he had stepped into the world of «Alice in Wonderland». Striving to remain professional, Ben simply tried to document all the mad oddities he saw around him. Habitants of Norga looked just creasy.Without hope to get anything meaningful, Ben pinged the Coordinator of Norga, Tolian Horoshilina. Surprising for Ben, Tolian agreed to give an interview any time; «.. Right now is also fine». Ben flew to the Norga Administration Office. That is another story.