Still, she must support what he was doing. His actions must seem under her command. If the rest of the council decided the human was out of her control, he would be killed and she would be disciplined. And, in spite of her misgivings, he was accomplishing what must be done.
She looked at the slide beside the waterfall. She couldn't remember the last time she had used it. Getting her own chamber when she joined the council had filled her with happiness. On that first day, she must have slithered down a hundred times. The waves became so high, water splashed above the seals to her entry door.
With her duties on the council came an understanding of their true situation. Once, every female adult had private chambers like this, to share or not with a male. Now, the council members alone had this privilege, and the dead fish in Nore's pond revealed how fragile that privilege was.
She climbed out of the water and prepared for the council meeting, then went to the bank of elevators and down to the Sanctuary chamber, twenty-five levels below.
She entered the Sanctuary and, after a short walk, dove into a wide stream draining a small lake. She was early, so she dawdled to calm her nerves, turning over and swimming on her back, letting the sounds and colors of her home world sooth her with their familiarity while the current took her downstream. This chamber, about half the size of the Commons, was reserved for The People. When she was young, this stream had been full of playing kits and their parents watching over them. Now, she often came here without seeing anyone. No one prevented The People from coming here. As crowded as the living chambers had become, they should welcome the relief the spacious Sanctuary provided, as it did for Ull, but they did not.
No human ever walked here. The closest any came was to service the substratum supporting the chamber. If a plant needed to be moved, one of The People dug the holes. If a tree needed to be cut, one of The People wielded the ax. That had been the custom since The People's Hand had been built. The custom and The People who honored it would end if the ship died. That she must prevent.
Ull turned over and dived beneath the surface. Soon she was again floating on her back, crunching a fish held against her chest. Best to be contentedly full when she faced the council. When she finished eating, she dove to the bottom to find some sand to wash with then swam rapidly toward the council pool.
Chapter Eight: Ride the Rails
Tommy went straight from Ull's quarters to the medical books brought from Earth. Not having your wits when in the presence of a lord was dangerous. He found an article about several anti-convulsant drugs that could be taken daily to prevent migraine. They didn't work for everyone, the article stated. He would worry about that if he could find them in the medical stores. He found two: Topiramate and Divalproex. The second had been approved, according to the article, while the first the article listed as still experimental. The possible side effects frightened him some, but considering his situation, liver failure might be a blessing. He began taking Divalproex that day according to the dosage recommended. He had done what he could. He didn't know a way to test the drug by forcing a migraine.
# # #
A tap on his shoulder interrupted Tommy's work with the translators.
"Pull your chair over to my desk," Valin said. "I've got the complete list of repairs, including those that Ull assigned a priority. Let's review them together."
Tommy counted the pages. "This is almost as bad as the translation problem. I'm not sure we'll ever get done."
"I went through the list before bringing it here," Valin said. "Except for the master artisans in charge of the hydroponics farms you already repaired and me, every master artisan in the ship has at least one computer that can't be repaired. In addition, two Commons farm masters reported broken irrigation control computers."
"And the checked items are...?" asked Tommy.
"Lord Ull's list." He passed a single sheet of paper. "These six items duplicate those checked in the order she wants them done."
Tommy looked at the first item on the list. "What is a 'central controller' for one hundred fifty-two 'track controllers'?"
"I know Seth, the guildmaster for that section," Valin responded, "but I have no idea what function his guild performs."
Tommy compared Ull's list to the main list, "Most of the broken computers are on the human occupied decks, but every computer on Ull's list is above the Commons."
Valin laughed. "You expected something different? When something dies on the lords' decks, it's usually repaired, even if that means shutting down a human deck." He indicated one of the items on the main list. "The parts for the computer controlling sewage disposal on that deck were used to repair the pond computer for a lord. No one lives on the human deck, anymore."
Valin's face became very serious. He leaned over the desk and whispered next to Tommy's ear. "Before you repaired the hydroponics computers, the guildmasters and masters decided it is only a matter of time before we are all dead. Lord Ull only confirmed what we already suspected."
Tommy also whispered, "And the lords?"
"They would be dead, too, unless they could both fix the ship and replace us at the same time. This ship functions because of the artisans. The lords live in the ship; they don't repair it. Your work has given us hope we might survive."
"I'll do my best," Tommy whispered, "and I live here, too, so I want what you all want, for the ship to function."
But if I get my way, he thought, how it functions will change a bit, and I won't be living here forever.
# # #
Before he left for his appointment with Seth, the guildmaster for the "track controllers," he sent Vent and his crew to investigate the waste disposal computer. After all, Tommy thought, Lord Ull ordered me, not my helpers, to repair the computers on the list.
The elevator door on Seth's floor opened to reveal a stooped, old artisan. "Good,” the old man said. “You are prompt. Come with me. You can't be wandering this deck on your own,"
"You're Seth?" Tommy asked.
The man straightened his back a little, and raised a pair of bushy, gray eyebrows. "Who else would I be?"
Tommy couldn't help grinning behind the back of the man he followed down the passageway. With his stooped gait and hairy body, an uncommon trait among the artisans, the man seemed almost monkeylike except for his bald head.
"Does that mean you will meet me every day I'm working here and take me to the elevator when I'm done?" Tommy asked.
"Yes. There are important things on this deck."
They had walked only a little way from the central column when Seth stopped at a hatch. As Seth led him inside, Tommy saw that the hatch and the walls surrounding it were thicker than those in other sections. They passed though one of the elevator-sized rooms that Tommy now recognized as an airlock, and a short passageway led to a chamber holding an even bigger surprise than Seth's hairy arms and neck. Computer monitors, the first he had seen other than those brought from Earth, covered the walls. Each individual monitor was small, no more than sixteen inches in diagonal, but they covered the walls, side by side, bottom to top, in a continuous mosaic from ceiling to floor on three sides of the room. All were black. A semicircular desk attached to the floor's center, with the open side away from the monitor-covered walls, was the only furniture, other than a single chair.
Seth paused inside the entrance, and his already stooped shoulders seemed to slump even more. "When I became guildmaster of Tracks," Seth said, "the walls of this room were alive. My principal duty was to keep all of this working, but, with the instruments on this desktop, I could turn and spin the Nesu Tol as well as direct track operation. Of course the lords operate the bridge, but should they be unable to, I could perform those functions. Now, both sets of instruments are dead."
They were talking in English, but he recognized the words in the lords' language. "Nesu Tol. The People's Hand. Is that the name of this ship?"
"Yes, although only the lords usually call her that. To most humans, she is just 'the ship.' She i
s more than that to me and deserves to be called by her name."
Seth walked to the desk. "Below this is the device which needs to be repaired."
Tommy chewed his lip for a second. "If you don't mind, I’d like to begin at the beginning, since I have no idea what you do or what all of this is for. What is a track? What is it you are in charge of?"
"The failure is below this room. I am sure of that," Seth said.
"You're probably right.” Tommy smiled. “But I can't fix what I don't understand. I don't understand what you control here."
Seth shrugged and turned back toward the hatch. "The nearest track begins two decks down." He led Tommy back out the airlock and down two flights of stairs into a dark room.
Seth switched on a portable light, revealing a hatch in a bulging wall. "That may be a tight fit for you," Seth said.
At Seth's touch on a switch, the access door spun to the left, withdrew from the wall like a gigantic screw, and swung to the side. With Seth leading, Tommy crawled through a bulkhead thicker than the length of his arm. Inside, in one direction, Seth's light revealed a tube-shaped shaft twice their height with four metal tracks, spaced equidistantly around the circumference of the shaft and stretched along its length. That end of the shaft was invisible in the distance. In the other direction, another hatch face covered the entire end of the shaft.
"What is this place? Where does this tunnel lead?" Tommy asked.
"To and through the hull," Seth said. "Most of the air is pumped from the tunnel, then a hatch in the hull on the other end is opened, releasing whatever air remains." He indicated the large hatch on the end of the tunnel. "That opens. Machinery on the other side pushes a large object, either of iron or wrapped in iron bands, into where we're standing. The object is held suspended in the tunnel by magnets in the walls. Electromagnets then accelerate the object down the tunnel toward wherever it's aimed outside the ship."
"A rail gun!" Tommy exclaimed. "I saw a demonstration of one of these on a PBS program about weapons!"
"PBS program? What is a PBS program?"
"Public Broadcasting System. Oh, never mind. Anyway, scientists on Earth are developing this very thing. Not as big, though. How many did you say you had?"
"One hundred fifty-two. Four rows of thirty-six per row, with each exit port ten degrees around the hull from the last, and four pointing forward and four pointing backward," Seth said.
Tommy had a thought. "You use this as a weapon?"
Seth's sour smile was made grotesque by the light he held at his waist. "This used to be a weapon. We sometimes used it to expel other things."
"What does the weapon projectile look like?"
"Usually a metal rod, tapered at the end for penetration."
"Do you know what a toothpick is?"
"Yes."
"Would this projectile look like a toothpick from a distance?"
"Yes, I suppose it would."
"That's what the other ship was shooting at us!” Tommy’s voice echoed in the chamber. “And this is the reason we ran! Our guns don't work!"
Seth grabbed Tommy's arm. "What do you know of that?"
"I watched it all from an observation window! I saw everything! Are these the only weapons this ship has? Don't you have energy weapons? Don't you have lasers?"
"I don't know what you mean by lasers, or energy weapons. These are our only weapons, and they have been dead for a long time."
Something vital did fail, Tommy thought.
This time, when Seth lifted the trapdoor in front of the desk, Tommy didn't protest. As he ducked his head below the control room floor, he looked into a chamber that, at first, seemed draped with dark snakes. The snakes resolved into cables leading from below the desk, and from underneath the room above to a large black cube. Other cables led from the cube to holes in the walls.
"This is some raised floor," Tommy muttered.
"What’s that?" Seth asked.
"Nothing. Just trying to make sense of how this place is put together." Tommy tried to follow one of the cables from the desk above his head through the twisted mass leading to the cube. "These cables aren’t marked. Do you ever have trouble following them?"
"No. When all this functioned, an apprentice had to know and recite the location and purpose of every wire as part of the examination for journeyman."
"And how long did that take to learn?" Tommy asked.
"Many months. Of course that includes the wires to the individual track controllers and from them to the drivers along the tracks."
"Would labeling them be a problem?"
Seth's face flushed red. "You are asking me to release my guild's secrets?"
"No, I’m asking you to help me help restore your guild's functions. You can always take the labels off when I'm finished."
A few breaths restored Seth's normal skin color, a pasty white that had never seen a sun, even the artificial suns of the Commons. "This will not be easy for me. I gave an oath not to reveal this to an outsider when I apprenticed to this guild." His gaze swept the room. "But this is as dead as the guildmaster who took that oath from me long ago," he paused for a moment, "and Lord Ull commands."
"I think the next step is to take the cover off that cube. Are you all right with that?" Tommy asked.
"I'll do whatever you say."
When Tommy had the cover off, he, at first, felt defeat. This computer had also been partially cannibalized. The builders had used blocks of circuitry that plugged into receptacles built around the inside periphery of the cube. Several of the receptacles were empty. Tommy pointed to the gaping holes. "What happened to those?"
"A lord took them. They were used to repair the lords' weapons control device in the targeting room. I tried to tell the lord his device wouldn't function unless this device also functioned. I almost lost my life, and the tracks still don't work."
Tommy sat down on the floor and considered the problem. He had replaced the hydroponics computers by understanding the devices being controlled and writing his own programs. That solution wouldn’t work here. To replace this computer he must have an understanding of its programs before he could write his own. If the computer had been intact, maybe it would have contained what he needed, but he wouldn't learn anything from this pile of junk.
He had to find a way out of this. What would he have done if his computer at home had died? He would have replaced the parts. Well, he had no parts for this; he had to replace the entire computer, and that's what he planned to do. The hydroponics computers hadn't been his first encounter with that. During his last year on Earth, his dad had let him buy a new computer. Tommy had built one from scratch with parts from an Internet store, including new and bigger disk drives. When he had it up and running, he had copied his personal data onto the new computer from the backup tapes he had made. That wouldn't work here even if he had backup tapes. The programs that ran on this cube wouldn't work on a Linux machine even if he could copy them to the new computer somehow. Backup tapes. Data as important as this must have been copied to something. A computer like this must have been reloaded from backup sometime over the last thousand years. If he had the backup, whatever it was, maybe he could do something.
"What did you use to back up this device?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"The programs and data used to operate this device. Do you have them recorded somewhere?" Moder hadn't known anything about programs, but maybe Seth did.
"Programs and data?"
"Instructions inside the device that tell it what to do."
Seth's face again turned red, and he sputtered. "What! How did you know! Only masters know that! You are much too young and not of our guild!"
Tommy again waited for him to calm down. "You would be surprised at what I know. So, where do you keep copies of those instructions?"
Except for his hands, which twisted in each other, Seth didn't move for a long while. His lips were pulled tight under his strange beard. As Tommy opened his mouth to ask agai
n, Seth walked back to the ladder they had descended and folded it aside. Where the ladder had touched the floor, he placed his palm flat and pushed to one side, revealing a storage space. From this, he lifted one of the circuitry blocks that plugged into the platforms inside the cube. "Four more of these are hidden in our section, and I keep another in my quarters. These contain the instructions controlling this device. Learning of them is part of our most secret rituals that raise a journeyman to master. All my oaths are betrayed."
"I'm sure you're not going to like what I want next, but can you print those instructions for me?"
Seth gave up all resistance. He put the block in a case he pulled from the hole in the floor and replaced the ladder. "You should wait here. The printers are in a room frequented by the lords. For you to go there would take preparation, which I haven't done. I'll bring the printed instructions."
Seth returned carrying a box filled with yellow paper along with the case he had left with. Tommy looked at the first sheet. "Yes!" he said.
"You seem happy," Seth said.
"This is a dump, not a formatted listing, which is bad, but I recognize instructions from a language I've seen before. I found a book in the first hydroponics farm we worked on. This is written in the language described in that book."
"I don't understand why you call it a language."
"These are the words this device uses to speak to itself. They are also the words this device will use to speak to me. Isn't that a language? By the way, how do you feel about cats?"
Seth had no objections, so Potter joined them each day in the control room. Potter spent much of his day searching for nonexistent vermin among the cables. When he wasn't doing that, he was asleep in one of the extra chairs Tommy brought in or trying to get into Tommy's lap. Potter was Tommy's connection with home. He worked better when the cat played or slept nearby.
Hacking the programs printed on those yellow sheets could have taken months or have even been impossible without a real computer to work with, but he had some clues on where to start from the programming book. The language used a three character, base sixty-four, addressing scheme with each character able to store numbers between zero and 4095. This would allow a program to address sixty-four gigabytes of data in Earth terms. Each half character contained the numbers zero through sixty-three with letters of the lords' alphabet used for numbers above 9 and below sixty-four. The book also stated that programs were always loaded beginning on a number ending in the character representing zero-zero.
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