The Last Dance

by Martin L Shoemaker

  Slicing out a model is tricky, especially a middle model, unless you want to do real damage. It leaves a break in the thread. If you don’t patch that break, splice together the ends, then the whole model is flawed. Any search against it can produce nonsense answers, or even get lost in a loop. But if you do splice the ends together, the knowledge engine will still be misaligned, because some of the conditions will change across the splice. The functionality quotient will drop, and it will take patient work to readjust it. This all takes time and skill, and Carver was one of the few people I knew who could do it well. As long as I stayed out of his hair.

  Looking further, I saw that he was splicing the broken end to a model from . . . five weeks ago? But that meant he had sliced out as many as three dozen models already. Why was he going through this?

  “Aha!” Suddenly it struck me. “You couldn’t fix Deece’s current model. It’s too tied to all these old models, and there’s some flaw in there somewhere.”

  Carver kept working, but he smiled. “Very good, Ensign.”

  “You couldn’t just slice out her current model, that’s tied in to security. There are guards against that. But you can slice out everything except the current model, one slice at a time. And that should remove the flaw. You’re going to splice her to a known state, and then let her fix any anomalies from there.”

  “With a little training from me, yes, she can get back to an acceptable functionality quotient. This is a hole in the security system, but you’d have to be aboard the ship to exploit it. And you’d have to be the best damned programmer you ever met.” Carver’s smile turned into a broad grin. I’d never seen him at work on the computer like this. Here he had real pride, and he was confident. If he could get that confidence in other areas, Captain Aames would sit up and take notice. “I had to go back far enough to make sure the model was clean, so Deece is going to wake up with the AI equivalent of the world’s worst hangover. She’s going to have a lot of gaps to fill in.”

  I didn’t want to disturb Carver, so I hooked my comp into the main system to review his work. The system had recorded every step, so I could watch them, rewind, stop, even watch in slow motion. Maybe I could learn his trick, or at least a bit of it. So I went back to the first model he had sliced out, and I watched the recording of his work. His steps were fast and smooth: shut down the knowledge engine; scan the model thread to find the desired historical model; run a slicing tool to disconnect it from the thread on both ends; run an input probe to find all the matching codelines on the two ends and map them together; build bridgelines where the codelines didn’t map well; and then check the splice for minimum FQ. It failed, so he tried again, building stronger bridgelines where he saw problems. This time the splice passed the minimum FQ, so he powered up the knowledge engine and ran it through training exercises until it reached operational FQ. Then he moved on to the next historical.

  I moved on as well. A lot of what he did was applying simple, automated tools. Anyone could do that. But how he selected the codelines to splice together, that intrigued me. A codeline was a bit of genetic algorithm, more grown than programmed, and it was hard to comprehend how they worked. They just did, because the system eliminated the ones that didn’t, and let the power of selection produce the best lines. So how did he identify the splice points? I could ask him, but I wanted to try to figure it out on my own. So I looked at the next slice operation.

  Then I saw something familiar: this historical model had come from the Initiative on Earth, and had been grafted in by Gale. I rewound to the first slice. It was also a historical model, grafted by Gale. I fast-forwarded to the third: the same thing. And the fourth, and the fifth, and . . .

  “Carver, these models.”

  “What?” He looked at his screen, swiped something, and suddenly my screen went black. I never knew he could do that. “Forget it, Smith.”

  “But these models all—”

  “Forget them, Ensign. That’s an order.” He sounded stern, like I had never heard him before. Then he looked up at me, and the light from his monitor glistened from moisture in his eyes. His tone softened. “Please.”

  “But sir, the captain needs to know this. These models that you’re slicing out: every one of them came up from Earth and was grafted right into the thread immediately. By Lieutenant Gale.”

  “And so?”

  “And so? So you’re cutting them out! That must mean they caused Deece’s malfunction. They caused . . . Gale caused all of this.”

  “We don’t know that, Smith.”

  “We don’t know that? Then why are you slicing them?”

  Carver turned back to his screen and continued working. “Because I want to get to the last point where I knew things were right. Before Gale started checking in updates from Earth.”

  “Before Gale screwed us all, you mean. The captain needs to know this.”

  “To know what? That Gale did his assigned tasks according to the recommended procedures?”

  “What?”

  Carver nodded, bobbing in his harness. “Smith, Gale is a pompous ass, but he’s all about procedure, about checking all the right boxes so he looks good to the higher-ups. He did exactly what the manual says. He just didn’t do any more. If I had been checking in updates, I would’ve done model consistency tuning, because I’ve found the grafts from the Initiative don’t line up with reality like they should. It’s probably some damn bureaucrat down there who ‘knows’ that his model is right and keeps blowing off my corrective responses. The variances are small, in the second decimal usually, but I catch them a lot. But I wasn’t maintaining Deece then. Gale was cross-training for my post. I told him about the tuning, but I don’t think he understood. There’s no record he ever did the tuning.”

  “And that caused Deece to flip out!”

  “One more time: we don’t know that. It’s probably true, but there might be some other problem in these models, something even I wouldn’t catch. I sure can’t trace down what’s wrong now, and I tried. All we really know is Deece was stable at one point, and now she isn’t, and we need to regress her back to stable.”

  “But Gale . . .”

  Carver pulled back from his screen and crossed his arms. “Smith, why was Gale maintaining Deece? Do you remember?”

  I tried to remember the details. So much was going on in those final weeks of Mars approach. “We were all cross-training. Gale was on your post, I was in medical, and you . . . pilot, right?”

  He pointed a finger at me. “Bingo. The captain and Max kept me so busy, I barely had time to sleep. So maybe it was my fault. Maybe I should’ve supervised Gale better.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Not possible? Damn straight it’s possible. But like you said, right now, I don’t give a damn. I only care about surviving the next eight months until the Collins gets here. And the captain has a plan, and it needs everybody, and we can’t afford any rifts between us. If we don’t work together, we’re dead. If the captain and Gale have it out, it won’t be good for any of us.”

  I tried to calm down. “But Carver, it’s not good to keep secrets from Captain Aames. He always finds out, and he won’t tolerate lying.” At that Carver laughed, and I stared at him in surprise. “What?”

  Carver rubbed his chin as if he couldn’t decide whether to speak or not. Finally he continued, “That time in my pilot training, the time the captain chewed me out so the whole ship heard it. You never heard what happened, right?”

  “No.” We all knew about the collision, but no hard facts.

  “No, you didn’t. And neither did the captain. Not the real story. The captain read me the riot act for steering my lander too close to Max’s and causing a collision. I spent two weeks on lander maintenance for that. But what the captain never knew was Max collided with me. I made a rookie mistake, clenched up in the pilot pod, and I lost control of my lander. I was on a collision course, almost as bad as”—he waved his arms around, swaying in the harness—“all this. I was on c
ourse to kill all of us. Scared the ever-loving piss out of me, which only made me clench up worse. So Max kept his cool, he flew his lander into a collision with mine, and pushed me out of my collision course. It nearly ruined landers 3 and 4, and it went on my record as a pilot-at-fault collision. But Max never told the captain the real story.”

  I could hardly believe my ears. “Max kept a secret that huge from Captain Aames?”

  “Uh-huh. I was even going to go to the captain, confess my sins, and Max stopped me. ‘Anson,’ he said, ‘don’t be a damned fool. You screwed up, but it’s a mistake you’ll never make again. I’m sure of that. You deserve punishment, but you also need something Nick Aames has in short supply: mercy.’ So he gave me his mercy. I certified as a pilot on our next round of cross-training, because Max gave me a second chance. Smith, this team needs Captain Aames pushing us to be our best, but it also needs someone giving out mercy and second chances. The captain doesn’t understand that, but somebody has to.”

  I thought about his words. “So since Max is gone, you’re appointing yourself? It won’t be easy. You’ll have to stand up to the captain, make him back down. Max was one of only a couple people I’ve ever seen do that.”

  He let out a long sigh. “Yeah, I think I’m ready. We’ll find out when the time comes. Besides, who else do we have? Gale?” At that we both laughed. “No, it’s me. I have to figure out this job. I owe it to all of you.” He lowered his eyes. “And to Max. So what’s it going to be, Ensign? Do we forget what you saw in those models?”

  It took me several seconds to decide. Carver was growing. Mars was forcing him into it. And I trusted the man he was growing into. I nodded.

  “Good.” Carver wiped his hand down his screen, and the room lit up. “And just in time. Deece, diagnostic summary?”

  Deece’s cool voice sounded from the console, and I tried not to shiver. “Controls are offline, and there is a significant gap in my model thread, but codelines and bridgelines are interpolating the differential. Functional quotient is eighty-one and rising. Eighty-three . . . eighty-four . . . eighty-six . . .”

  “That’s good enough, Deece, I’m hooking you back into ship’s controls. Please analyze and null this tumble with minimal fuel expenditure.” Then he switched to the comms channel. “Weaver, Hsü, brace for acceleration in”—he looked at his screen—“seven seconds. Six . . . five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .”

  The ship’s attitude jets started firing. We heard the rumble through the hull, just as we had many times on the trip out; only now they reminded me of the low, quiet, stealthy rumble of a Martian storm stalking me, and I just wanted them to stop immediately. But I held my cool, even as they tossed us here and there as they corrected the tumble. Finally, after over half a minute, the jets cut out. I let go of my grip, and I floated in freefall. I didn’t drift toward any wall, I just hung there. We were stable.

  Carver wasted no time before getting back on the comms. “Lander 1, this is Bradbury. Captain, we don’t have enough fuel to correct the decaying orbit, but our tumble is nulled. You’re welcome to come aboard.”

  The captain answered, “Bradbury, lander 1. About damn time, Carver, but good work. Now I have two more tasks for you: reestablish ground communications, and find what’s left of the mactory deck, wherever it is. And make it snappy, I’m on my way in. Aames out.”

  The comm clicked off, and Carver stared at it. “Always pushing.”

  I floated closer and patted him on the back. “You have your work cut out for you, Lieutenant.”

  I met the captain at the lander dock, and Weaver and Hsü floated behind me, a flotilla of packing crates and bags still behind them. “Shall we finish packing, sir?” I asked as the hatch slid shut behind him.

  The captain raised a hand. “Hold off, Smith, that depends on Carver.” He opened a comm channel. “Lieutenant, have you finished those tasks yet?”

  Carver’s response was crisp and confident. He might figure out the captain yet. “Yes, sir. We’re sending down weather data now. It’s not good, sir. Van der Ven says the storm’s coming faster than he predicted.”

  “We’ll deal with that. And the mactory deck?”

  “I think I found it, sir, and it’s mostly intact, just tumbling like a dervish.” He pushed a video feed out to the general comp circuit, and I looked at the image: a large, faint disk shape with a long, bent shaft extending out from the center. The combination tumbled at least three times as fast as the Bradbury had. Two blobs on opposite sides of the deck were probably the missing landers in their maintenance cradles.

  The captain frowned. “That’s more tumble than I expected, but we’re stuck with it. How’s the orbit?”

  “That’s not good either, Captain. More eccentric than the Bradbury’s, and decaying faster. It might have two, maybe three more orbits before it crashes.”

  “Well, which is it, two or three? I don’t need guesses, Carver, I need data. Figure it out!” The captain looked up from his comp and turned to Weaver. “Doctor, climb aboard. I need you to pilot me over to the mactory deck, so I can board it and salvage whatever we can before the deck crashes. Then you hightail it back here and load up the lander. I’ll put whatever I can get into lander 3, and then bring it down to Mars.”

  “Captain!” I couldn’t stop myself from shouting, earning me an instant glare from Aames.

  “Ensign, shut up. We need those machine tools, people. Our safety margins are practically zero without them. With them we have a very good chance. That’s worth risking one person.”

  “But not you, sir.” This time I wasn’t ready to back down. “I’ll go. We won’t survive without you, sir.”

  “The hell you won’t, Smitty. You’re a good crew, and I’m leaving you good plans. Follow them to the letter. That’s an order. But this mission needs a pilot. Carver’s not ready, not for this, and Weaver’s too valuable. Having a doctor increases your odds more than a captain does. I’ve worked the scenarios, and this is how it will be. End of discussion. Weaver, get aboard.”

  Dr. Weaver had no choice, not with a direct order. She pushed toward the lander hatch. But it didn’t open.

  Captain Aames reopened his comm channel. “Carver, I thought you had Deece under control.”

  Carver’s face appeared on the comm, and I saw sweat bead up on his dark forehead and hang there in zero gravity. He was up to something. This soon after assuming Max’s role, and already he was up to something. But did he have the guts to knock heads with Nick Aames? Make this count, Carver.

  Carver’s hesitation was only an instant, then he calmed down. Some of that earlier confidence reappeared. “I can’t let you do this, Captain.”

  “Carver, you’re relieved.” Captain Aames turned back to me. “Go pull him away from that console. If he touches anything, break his fingers.”

  I looked at Carver’s face. If he had pleaded with me, I would’ve followed orders. Instead, his nerve held, and I didn’t move. Carver answered, “Captain, I can teleoperate landers 3 and 4 through Deece, just like I locked your hatch. It’s not as smooth as a telepilot link, but I can do it. I’ve already powered up their engines.”

  The captain looked at me and pointed forward; but I held my ground, so he turned back to the comm. “What good will that do, Carver? Two lander drives won’t be enough to stop that tumble. They certainly won’t be enough to lift the deck to a higher orbit. You’re costing us time, Lieutenant.”

  “No, sir, I’m buying us time. I can do this, Captain. Watch your screen.”

  So all eyes turned to the comp screen. Already the deck’s orbit was changing: not higher, but lower. Carver was using the landers to put the mactory deck into a dive toward Mars. The captain shouted, “Carver, you fool!”

  And then, precise as clockwork, eleven kilometers of rock came into the screen on a fast orbit: Phobos, the inner moon of Mars. And the mactory deck dove in front of it, practically on top of it—close enough that the gravity of Phobos, even weak as it was, grab
bed the deck, swung it around, and slung it out into a higher, sweeping orbit. Carver used the landers to nudge it still higher and to level it out. Even the tumble had slowed, thanks to Phobos’s weak tidal forces soaking up some angular momentum.

  All eyes blinked. I snuck a look at the comm screen, and Carver grinned at me. I winked back.

  Finally Captain Aames spoke, very calmly. “Carver, why didn’t you tell me this plan?”

  “When I saw the solution, I saw we had only one chance, sir. And it had to be immediate. You would’ve told me I couldn’t do it.”

  “You’re damned right I would’ve. It was a damn fool plan. And if you’d stopped to argue with me, it was no plan at all.” The captain drew a big breath and raised his voice. “All right, everyone on board lander 1. Carver, get your ass down here on the double.”

  “Sir?” But Carver didn’t sound afraid. He had impressed Nick Aames in the only way possible: by being right.

  And the captain as much as admitted it. “We’ll have three landers at the mactory deck, Carver, so we’re going to need three pilots. Apparently you are one. And a damned good one, Lieutenant, and maybe a good officer someday. Chief Maxwell would be proud.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  ORBITAL RENDEZVOUS

  I could tell you the rest of that expedition: how we intercepted the mactory deck, got the macroassemblers and the nanoassemblers and the machine tools and even the raw stock; how what we couldn’t load that trip, we launched into a stable parking orbit; how we returned to the Bradbury, packed up the rest of the hydroponics, and launched everything else that we could into another parking orbit; and how by the time we finally returned to Mars, the sandstorm was upon us, and we nearly lost lander 3, but weather reports from Deece and radar readings from the ground brought us all down safely. Oh, sure, Carver and I had to change course at the last minute and ended up at landing pad C, but we knew we could find shelter there, just like we left it.