Maxlore knew that building a prototype of the Hydrobore would be expensive because no one else had worked out the bugs. In general, developing a prototype is always a formula for cost overruns, and the overly complex hydrobore only magnifies the problem. For the Hydrobore to be cost-effective a full-scale version had been required from the very beginning.

It had taken three years instead of one to get the prototype working, and then it took five more years at twenty miles a year to tunnel the hundred miles required to construct the geo-thermal power plant. The cost has been staggering—close to $240 million a year. The figures indicated the power plant would yield $1.2 billion a year.

Now, because of the “environmental” injunction, the power plant hadn’t gone online and the bills were piling up. Higher and higher.

Maxlore considered the depth of his predicament.

Tonight’s shipment would solve one problem—if all went smoothly. Knowing Sam, it would. But Maxlore Industries was still in dire financial straits; there were the cost-overruns for the Hydrobore prototype, the expense to build the power plant, and, most frustrating, the $20 million a month they were losing while the power plant was offline because of the injunction.

Maxlore had planned for the expenses, even for rampant cost-overruns, but Maxlore Industries was depending on the energy production of the geo-thermal power plant to repay these investments.

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