by Doug Farren
Jay could almost imagine the equations and design decisions running around in the engineer’s head as he analyzed the problem. After a moment, Tyrone, in a cautious tone of voice, replied, “Yes, such a unit could be built given enough time. What type of application needs that kind of power?”
Ignoring his question, Anita smiled and said, “Good! Oh, I’ll need the estimated dimensional specs in three weeks and the actual units must be ready for delivery three months from now.”
“What!” Tyrone almost shouted, his eyes bulging. “Impossible! Eight months would be pushing it, especially at that high a power level. You have no idea how tight the engineering tolerances are in building these things.”
Anita did not flinch having anticipated Tyrone’s reaction. She calmly took out her ever-present cell phone and placed a call. The room was so quiet Jay could hear the ringing from the phone even though it was pressed against Anita’s ear. “Tom? Miss Kingston. Tyrone Jackson of superconductor research will be presenting you with a funding request within the next couple of days. Give him whatever resources or funds he needs—no limits.”
There was a brief delay while she listened to the reply, then she continued, “That’s correct, no limits what-so-ever. I’ll approve the funding when it comes through.” She calmly terminated the call, placed the cell phone back into its holder, then looked intently at Tyrone waiting for his reply.
The full impact of what Anita had just done was slowly registering. The CEO of Advanced Space Technologies, a company with billions of available research dollars, had just given him a blank check to do whatever was needed to satisfy her request. His mouth cycled open and closed a couple of times but no sound came out. Finally, he managed to say, “I’ll keep you posted on our progress.”
Satisfied with his answer, Anita turned to Jay and said, “Looks to me as if your peak power problem has just been solved. We'd better leave so Tyrone can get to work.”
The last thing Jay saw as the control room door closed behind them was Tyrone hurriedly scribbling on a notepad as the stunned technicians gathered around him. Jay had never before seen Anita do anything even remotely similar to what he had just witnessed. Even he was shocked. They walked in silence until they reached the subway.
Once in the car, Jay asked, “Do you think he can pull it off?”
“Oh yes. No doubt about it. It’s going to be hellishly expensive but well worth the investment.” They rode in silence for a few moments with Anita staring off into empty space. Jay could sense that something important was on her mind so he sat in respectful silence. Finally, she turned a serious face toward him and said, “I’ve made a change in the ship’s compliment Jay. I’m sorry but I can’t afford to let you go.”
“How could you do that?” he blurted out. “This is my dream! Without me the Starfire wouldn’t even be a concept. Besides, nobody else is qualified to do the required testing and drive tuning. If I don’t go the drive will never work.”
Anita’s face softened and she placed her hand on top of Jay’s. “It is precisely because of your importance that you cannot be on the Starfire during the initial testing. If there is a malfunction and the ship is destroyed we would never recover from your loss. If that happened, Starfire would truly become a dead project. I’m sorry. I’m just looking out for our future.”
“But I have to be there,” Kauffman continued to argue. “The drive will be useless unless it is properly aligned. The only way to align it is to make the adjustments from the main drive maintenance panel and the only way to find out which adjustments are needed is to run the tests. I’m the only one qualified to analyze and interpret those tests and I’m the only one who can understand the data displayed by the maintenance console.”
“Calm down and think about what you just said,” Anita countered. “I agree that you are the only one currently qualified to get this new drive up and running. Tell me, what would happen to the project if you were to have a sudden heart attack right now?”
Kauffman thought about his answer for a moment then in a much subdued tone said, “The project would suffer a serious setback. Someone with a heavy mathematical and engineering background would have to spend a considerable amount of time with CAIN becoming familiar with all my research. I guess I see your point. But how are we going to get around this problem? There isn’t time to bring someone else up to speed.”
“I want you to try to figure out some way of doing your analysis here with CAIN’s help. If you have to equip the Starfire with additional sensors and beef up the communications system then we’ll do it.”
“We will still need to train someone to make the tuning adjustments and any other alterations that might be needed as indicated by the initial testing. These kinds of things just can’t be done remotely,” Kauffman said finally seeming to accept Anita’s decision.
Anita considered this for a moment then asked, “Does the person need to have a mathematical background or can they just have a good grasp of engineering?”
“Actually, I would prefer to have someone with both abilities.”
“That’s the answer I was counting on, because the Starfire’s chief engineer was chosen specifically because of those qualities. How long do you imagine it would take for you to train a mathematically inclined engineer to be able to make the tuning adjustments?”
“Depends on how good of a mathematician this engineer is.”
“He graduated top of his class from Cornell. He holds a BS in Math and has a degree in engineering. He’s pretty damn smart.”
“Considering his credentials I would make a wild guess of at least six weeks, preferably eight.”
Anita pulled out her cell phone. She released a small latch and the phone split lengthwise. Locking the phone halves back together had converted it into a pocket computer. She used the touch pad to bring up a calendar then continued.
“The Starfire is scheduled to leave for the testing area on October twenty third. That’s in about four months. I was planning on briefing the crew a month before departure. They were then to have been sequestered on site for two weeks and then transferred to the ship two weeks before departure so they could familiarize themselves with it before leaving. If I up the brief by another month and a half to say ... August fourteenth, you should have enough time to get the chief engineer up to speed on the inner workings of the drive system. That gives you about two months to develop a method of allowing you to perform the test analysis from here and to think about a training curriculum for the chief engineer. Think you can do it?”
Kauffman paused to think a moment, mumbling to himself as he mentally figured out what he would need to do. After a minute he replied, “Yes, those dates will be fine.”
Anita could tell from the tone of his voice that her decision had hurt him deeply. She knew it would take Jay a considerable amount of time before he would fully accept her decision but she also knew that he was smart enough to realize the decision she had made was the right one. Jay was not only an employee of her company but also a good friend and it had not been easy for her to break the news to him. But it was the correct decision to make from the company’s standpoint and she would stick by it.
A soft chime sounded. Jay recognized it as the attention signal from the Omni-pad and pulled the device out of his pocket. Flipping it open, he quickly went through the identification procedure and was surprised to hear CAIN’s voice. As far as he knew, the computer did not have a reason to be contacting him. “I am monitoring a security breach of the project database,” the machine announced.
Jay glanced quickly at Anita and said, “Give me the details.”
“An individual using a secure terminal has accessed the Starfire propulsion design files. The penetration program was hidden within an approved backup routine. The rogue program is very well designed and has been removing all traces of its activities as it progresses through the system. My security routines have been monitoring its progress since it first began execution. Shall I terminate it?”
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br /> Jay glanced at Anita who shook her head slightly. “No,” he told the machine. “Allow it to continue to run. Let it access the dummy files. What is the program doing with the information and what terminal ID was used to inject the program?”
“The program has successfully penetrated the system’s security barriers and is rapidly displaying the contents of all project related data on the terminal. The unauthorized program originated at terminal four two five dash zero zero three. Security records show only one person is currently in room 425—Mr. David Burger, currently assigned to information technology.”
Anita turned her pocket computer back into a cell phone and started issuing orders. The subway was slowing to a halt at their destination as she closed the phone. “Security is on the way. They have instructions to wait outside the room and pick him up as he exits.”
“Well, you did predict that someone would become interested in the project. I’m glad we set up a dummy research system.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more. I want to know who's behind this. CAIN mentioned the program it had detected was well designed. That's quite a compliment from a machine as sophisticated as it is. Top-notch security cracking programs are not something commonly available to the general public.”
Anita had never quite been able to agree with Jay that CAIN was a sentient being and had so far refused to address the machine with its chosen male pronoun. It was a distinction that Jay always noticed and it bothered him. As far as he was concerned, CAIN was a sentient being.
“You’re right on that point. Perhaps CAIN can help shed some more light on things.” Jay turned to his omni-pad as the door to the subway car opened and asked, “Can you identify the origin of the unauthorized program?”
Instantly, the machine replied, “I have performed an analysis of the program’s design and logic structure. It is similar to the types of programs used by the NSA to extract information from secured computer systems.”
Jay’s jaw flopped open, “The NSA? Why would the NSA be trying to break into the Starfire design files?”
Anita shook her head as she replied, “You must not follow politics very closely do you Jay?”
“No. Politics do not interest me in the slightest. I’m not even registered to vote.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. Come on. I’ll try to explain on the way to security.” Anita stood up and exited the car. She paused while Jay closed the Omni-pad then turned and headed for the elevator.
“Let’s see if I can give you the short and simple explanation,” Anita continued while they waited for the elevator to arrive. “Remember what happened to NASA after the Mars disaster?”
“Of course. It was pretty much the straw that broke the camel’s back. They received so much public criticism that they halted all further manned exploration missions. The Moon-base construction was halted and NASA became mired in political turmoil as Congress conducted an extensive review of their operations. The business community and several private groups interested in manned space exploration eventually became fed up with NASA and took over where they had left off. That’s why virtually all current manned missions are from private companies.”
“And where are all the heavy launch facilities for these private companies located?”
Jay cocked his head to one side for a moment then replied, “All over the world: Mexico, South Africa, Europe. One even uses a converted oil drilling platform.”
“But none are in the United States. Do you know why?” she asked as the elevator arrived and the doors parted.
“I never thought about that,” Jay replied, following Anita into the elevator. “I guess it’s more economical.”
“The real reason,” Anita shot back jabbing the button for the ground floor, “is that the United States government refused to grant the required permits needed to build and operate commercial launch facilities within their boarders. Millions were lost when the temporary permits granted to the spaceports built several decades ago were never upgraded to permanent status. NASA has always been a government funded organization and they were simply afraid of the competition that nearby commercial launch facilities would bring.”
“I guess that makes sense. NASA did almost become a dead agency—not long after the X-prize was won if I remember right; but they managed to survive. They have quite an impressive array of launch vehicles at their disposal.”
Anita kept her eyes on the changing floor numbers as she continued. “The X-prize got private companies interested in space flight. It didn’t take long before several companies announced plans to build and operate a fleet of ships offering space services at quite low prices. Not long after the X-prize was won the United States badgered many governments into passing laws prohibiting or severely limiting private companies from operating spacecraft. These laws were touted as being necessary to protect the public from the dangers of unsafe privately operated vehicles. What the laws really did was to force the companies to find other locations for their launch facilities. Locations in countries that were more open to commercial spaceflight.”
The elevator bounced to a halt and Anita was through the doors before they had completely opened. “What you don’t know,” she continued as they walked side-by-side down the hallway, “is that NASA and the U.S. government have lost the technological advantage they once held in the area of space technologies. Their rockets are based on decade’s old technology and most of their small lunar fleet uses engines built and maintained by AST. NASA would never have established a mining base on the moon but Lunar Metals did. And, with the help of advanced engines designed by AST, they are making a rather healthy profit.”
“But,” Jay interrupted. “The United States is the most technologically advanced country on the planet. Nobody can challenge us in that regard.”
They rounded a corner as Anita replied. “Nobody can challenge our military you mean. Our government has focused on the technology of war for the last few decades to the exclusion of the other sciences. We have the most powerful and most technologically advanced military of any country on Earth but we are falling behind in other areas. The government is getting worried by all the advances being made and would like to have some of that technology for themselves.”
“I was under the impression that a lot of military technology also had civilian applications,” Jay huffed, starting to get a little winded from their fast pace through the hallways.
“In most cases that’s true,” Anita replied, not slowing her pace. “But that technology is useless if the government keeps a lid on it and uses it exclusively for military applications. I have had several requests to share some of our most closely guarded corporate secrets with the government for security reasons but my lawyers have managed to thwart all of the attempts so far. Apparently, the government is willing to go to extremes to get the information they want.”
“I find that a little hard to swallow. I can’t believe our own government would be trying to steal information from us.”
They had arrived at the central security office. Anita’s badge let them through the security door. As the door closed behind them, Anita made one further comment. “The government is desperate Jay. We lost billions in the aftermath of the L. A. quake. Our economy took a hellish hit when the reality of global warming forced the government to take extraordinary measures to keep things from getting worse or face sanctions by the United Nations. America is no longer the technological leader it once was and the funds needed to do the necessary research to regain the advantage just aren't there. We spent far too much of our national budget fighting all the little wars in the Middle East and now we are paying for it. This country is in serious trouble and I can only see the people in charge becoming more and more desperate as time goes on.”
Jay had never before been in the central security office but all AST employees were aware of its existence. It was dimly lit so as to allow the people inside to more easily watch their monitors. Most areas of AST company property were covered by ca
meras monitored by dedicated individuals from this single expansive room. The head of security met them as they entered. “He’s still inside,” he briefed Anita after being introduced to Jay. “I don’t believe he is stupid enough to think he would not have been caught. How does he expect to get the information off-site?”
“I’ve been wondering about that myself,” Jay replied. “The data he is retrieving is being sent to a secured terminal at a fairly high rate of speed. Security terminals don’t have any data storage devices attached. They’re located inside a shielded room to block any outgoing signals and the computer itself is isolated from all outside connections. He can’t send the data anywhere.”
“Do we have a camera in that room?” Anita asked.
“No. Cameras are not allowed in secured rooms. They could be used to read the information on the screen. We do have coverage of the entrance however. It’s on this monitor here,” he replied indicating a nearby screen.
A moment later the door opened and a short, stocky, nearly bald individual exited. He was immediately surrounded by five security officers and placed under arrest. “Have every square inch of him searched with a microscope,” Anita ordered. “I want to know the moment you discover how he intended to get the data off-site.”
“Yes Mrs. Kingston.”
Kauffman and Anita exited the room together but parted company in the hallway. Jay had decided to take the rest of the day off and Anita had some other pressing business to attend to. The issue of the security breach continued to bother him as he drove the short distance to his apartment. Half-way through his standard microwave supper, Jay put in a call to CAIN with the omni-pad. “How was the information Mr. Burger was extracting presented once access to the secured files had been obtained?”
“All information was routed to the display terminal and briefly displayed. No copies of the data were made. I detected no additional devices connected to the perpetrator’s computer.”
