The Hot Gate: Troy Rising III-ARC

by John Ringo

  “I am in cycle again, Mister Vernon,” Granadica said.

  “I am...in cycle as well,” Dr. Barreiro said. “But I will state that the government of Argentina will have no further imputations cast against its citizens who are members of the Alliance Navy...”

  “Well, if you’d...!”

  “And we’re stopping again!” Tyler said raising his hands again. “Because every second that passes I am getting older and death’s mighty hand collects us all in its time. And we are drifting gently away from the negatives...away from the negatives... And... Good. And now we’re going to talk as friends with an issue we must all resolve to repair. Parker.”

  “Sir?”

  During one of the battles around Troy, Parker and Thermal had ended up in a shuttle working the scrapyard when a Rangora fleet came through the gate. Dozens of battleships, lasers and missiles flying in every direction and all she could do was sit in the shade of a piece of rubble and hope nobody noticed.

  Being in the meeting had so far felt very much like that clash of titans. Except that during the battle, since they were powered down, she couldn’t see what was happening. Here she could watch in terror.

  Now everyone was looking at her. That didn’t make it easier.

  “Can you, without imputing false actions or lack thereof of any person, colloidal or otherwise, living or dead who might or might not exist somewhere in this universe, possibly sort out what faults are due to potentially questionable manufacture by some group or system that may remain nameless versus faults that may or may not be due to some potential possible or variable form of maintenance?”

  “Sirrr?”

  “Which ones are Granadica and which ones are sloppy maintenance?” Tyler said.

  “Mister Vernon, that is...”

  “Damnit, Tyler, I thought you were...”

  “STOP!” Tyler said. “I was translating. It’s cultural. The actual words intended should be substituted for the previous question in everyone’s mind. Parker. Which are which?”

  “Uh, sir...” Parker said.

  “Yes, or no?”

  “Yes, sir,” Parker said, gulping. “It’s pretty easy, really. The Granadica ones don’t kill you.”

  “Heh,” Barnett said. “That’s a good way of putting it.”

  “What?” Dr. Barreiro said. “Are you suggesting we are deliberately sabotaging...”

  “That’s not what she said or meant, Foreign Minister,” Tyler said. “Please don’t play that game. I don’t have time or interest. Dana, what do you mean exactly?”

  “I’m having a hard time explaining, sir...” Dana said, looking around at “her” people.

  “We’ve noted that as well.” Thomas Silver was the Deputy Chief of Special Projects for the Wolf System. He was an orbital engineer with, at this point, three years experience working on all the various projects that cropped up in Wolf. Unlike the Night Wolves he wasn’t a prototyper, just the “odd job” expert. He also, not coincidentally, was Vernon’s son-in-law. “The faults that can be directly attributed to manufacturing defects are invariably non-lethal by direct form. Which is...”

  “Impossible,” Chief Barnett said. “Which is what everyone at the ground level has been saying.”

  “And it’s a word that hasn’t been used a lot,” Tyler said. “Define. Dana? Thermal?”

  “Ministers,” Thermal said, leaning over and looking at the South Americans. “There are exactly no frills on a Myrmidon. I think you might have noticed that on the way up. Every. Single. System. Has to work perfectly or people die. That is what is impossible about the faults.”

  “People keep saying ‘random,’ ” Dana interjected. “They’re not random!”

  “They are as close to statistically perfectly random as you can get,” Silver pointed out.

  “No, they’re not,” Thermal replied. “They are non-lethal. That, right there, proves they are non-random. Ministers,” he said again. “When you were flying up here, did you think the ride was smooth?”

  “Much smoother than an aircraft,” Dr. Werden said.

  “We were accelerating, most of the time, at a speed that would make most fighter pilots pass out,” Captain DiNote said.

  “We were?” Dr. Barreiro said.

  “Absolutely,” Thermal said. “Most of the time we were pulling ten gravities. During turns we were pulling upwards of thirty. And you didn’t feel a thing, did you?”

  “No,” Dr. Barreiro said.

  “This part of the discussion is one of the reasons I required that we use Myrmidons,” Tyler said.

  “There are seventy-two gravity plates in the main cargo compartment that are why you didn’t feel anything,” the Engineer’s Mate said. “They control the inertial condition on the ship. Every single one is very difficult to manufacture. Every single one has to be perfect. Every single one has to be in tune. Or you would have been splattered into red goo during the ride. It’s one of the reasons we kept asking for the engineers, your sons, to return to their stations. Among the thousand other jobs they have in flight is ensuring that the inertial control systems remain working.”

  “I...didn’t know that about shuttles,” Dr. Werden said, gulping slightly. “I have ridden shuttles many times.”

  “Civilian shuttles,” Tyler interjected. “Columbias. They don’t have the acceleration of a Myrmidon. That was why Comet’s shuttle was dispatched during the First Battle of Troy to pick up those passengers. It had a much higher acceleration than a Columbia. They can’t make a shuttle using ‘all earth’ technology that can do what a Myrmidon does.”

  “My point is that if one of those is out of sync, then it’s a disaster,” Thermal said. “There is no way to have one that’s just a teensy bit wrong. They either work or they don’t.”

  “So explain Thirty-Four?” Dana said.

  “That’s it, you can’t,” Thermal replied, leaning back and crossing his arms. “Nobody can.”

  “Thirty-Four?” Dr. Werden said.

  “We had a shuttle,” Barnett replied, shaking her head. “It had a fault in the inertia we didn’t even notice. Passed every check. Until we got Marines onboard.”

  “What was wrong with it?” Dr. Werden asked.

  “Imagine...” Barnett said, shaking her head. “Imagine a thousand little fingers up inside your guts, gennntly massaging them.”

  “Oh,” Dr. Barreiro said, grabbing his stomach and crossing his legs. “Oh...”

  “Oh, yeah,” Barnett said, grinning. “Which was what we heard from the Marine in the single seat it effected as soon as we hit a particular acceleration curve. Well, that and screaming. It’s hard to get out of those seats fast but he set a record. What should have happened is...what Thermal said. He should have been red goo. Instead he started screaming and hopping around like a madman.”

  “The Marines thought we did it on purpose,” Captain DiNote said. “That it was a practical joke. We never figured out how it worked. We ended up pulling every part of the control runs and power for the plate, and the plate, of course, until we could get it in spec.”

  “I hope you charged us for it,” Tyler said.

  “Oh, we did,” Admiral Duvall said. “Bet on that.”

  “Everyone was stumped,” Thermal said. “Even our engineering officer, who has a masters in this stuff, couldn’t figure out how to even replicate it. We tried because, among other things, it would have made a great...” He stopped, coughed and flushed red.

  “Potential breakthrough in gravitics,” Barnett finished for him then coughed.

  “Ah, yes,” Dr. Barreiro said, smiling.

  “We never got that, specifically,” Thomas said.

  “Well, you don’t,” Barnett said. “You get ‘intermittent fault, grav system nine. Parts replaced until fault rectified.’ There’s no box for ‘really really weird fault that looks like a practical joke.’ ”

  “How would you do that?” Admiral Duvall said, musingly. “I mean, I can see it in general, but the equations are...”


  “Impossible,” Thermal said. “But while that’s an extreme example, most of the faults have something like that in common. They don’t kill anyone and it’s nearly impossible to have a fault that doesn’t kill anyone on a Myrmidon!”

  “Are they...unnecessarily deadly?” Dr. Barreiro asked. “The shuttles, that is?”

  “I have to answer that,” Admiral Benito said. “No. This is the essential problem of military equipment. If there is some...slack somewhere then you are doing things wrong. Everything must be the absolute minimum to do the maximum. As much power as you can fit in as small a space as possible. The fact that there is so little slack tells me something I had wondered which is whether the Myrmidons were a good design.”

  “I’m still not too crazy about the main power system,” Barnett said. “I’d like a little redundancy.”

  “Something we’re looking at,” Silver said. “And we’d noticed the general non-lethality of problems. For that matter, most of them don’t truly deadline the boat especially if they’re caught early. And it is one of the theories having to do with why it crops up in grapnels so much. They are somewhat peripheral to survival.”

  “Then why is the 143rd having so many accidents!” Dr. Barreiro shouted. “We have lost lives!”

  The Apollo and Norte Alliance members stopped and took an almost simultaneous breath then settled back into their seats.

  “Oh, my God!” Dana blurted then cringed. She stared across the table at Captain DiNote in terror.

  “Engineer’s Mate Parker is unused to meetings of this magnitude,” Tyler said, leaning back. “She has had an insight. She is, however, aware that sharing that insight would cause difficulties.”

  “Because she is going to say that the problem of the 143rd is due to our own negligence,” Dr. Palencia snarled. “We are well aware of her opinions.”

  Tyler paused and looked thoughtfully at him for a moment, cocking his head to the side.

  “I think everyone from Apollo and the 142nd had that shared opinion when the Foreign Minister of Argentina made his outburst, Under Minster for Interstellar Affairs,” Tyler said, mildly. “However, I was watching Parker and she managed to be the sole of tact. Which means that whatever insight she may have is either peripheral to that position or an extension thereof. Since we are trying to get to the bottom of what is going on, such insights are valuable. I am personally interested in the insight. I would request of the South American delegation that any ire they may have towards Parker for her insight be directed at myself or Admiral Duvall who I am going to request order Parker to share the insight. Admiral?”

  “Engineering Mate?” Duvall said. “The nature of your insight?”

  Dana gulped for a minute then grimaced, angrily.

  “It’s a Johannsen’s worm.”

  “What?” Granadica shouted. “I’ve been checked for every virus, worm and Trojan known to man or Glatun!”

  “Granadica,” Tyler said. “Yell at me or the Admiral, please. Explain, Parker?”

  “I was looking at Mut... Coxswain’s Mate Glass,” Dana said, grimacing. “And I kept thinking ‘Blond, blond, blond’ and I couldn’t figure out why.”

  “I am...blond?” Mutant said, smiling slightly.

  “The actual Johannsen’s worm,” Admiral Duvall said, putting her hands over her eyes. “From the mouths of babes.”

  “I still don’t understand,” Dr. Barreiro said.

  “Don’t you?” Tyler said, turning the Minister’s left wrist upwards so that the faint scar carried by virtually every member of his generation could be seen. “The Horvath, those ever to be damned squids, gave those vile worms to us. To see who would care for themselves, and their children, enough to clean a simple wound. Put some antiseptic on it, bandage it, and you survived. Left untreated, you died. Simple, effective and permanent.”

  “So you are saying that the proof we are having fatal accidents due to negligence is this... Whatever this is?” Dr. Barreiro said.

  “Granadica?” Tyler said.

  “Your insight...meets all logic tests,” Granadica said. “And neither I nor any of the cyberneticists have found it.”

  “It is the ghost in the machine,” Tyler said, grinning.

  “This is not funny,” Dr. Werden said. “I lost sons of friends in those crashes.”

  “Would you care for me to list the number of people I have lost in my life, Herr Doctor?” Tyler said, still smiling thinly. He leaned back, reached into his suit and pulled out a thin cigar. “South America was, except for the plagues, relatively untouched by the Horvath and the Rangora. Brazil lost Rio.” Lit it. “Santiago, Buenos Aires, were never touched. So if you’d care to count bodies, we can do that all day. My mother for one. Friends and coworkers by the dozens. I still don’t know where this is coming from but what it is, what it means, is absolutely clear. It is a test. A test to see if the users are worthy of space. And we didn’t put it there. We can’t even find it.”

  “It has to be hidden really deep in my programming,” Granadica said, in a very small voice. “Now that I realize what’s going on, I’m looking for it. And not finding it. I wasn’t even aware of it and now that I am aware of it, I’m finding deliberate logic blocks against seeing it. I may be able to backtrack to it that way...”

  “I’m not sure we should pull it,” Tyler said, puffing.

  “What?” “Sir, I think you need to...” “You would kill our sons...?”

  “IT’S A TEST!” Tyler shouted. “Binary solution set! Do you have enough sense to come in out of the vacuum! Do you have enough sense to make sure that the boat you are going to fly works! I rode here on boats that your sons, Foreign Minister, maintained! Comet, do you do every single repair in every single boat?”

  “Sir, I haven’t done an actual repair since I got there,” Parker replied. “Or a first test. All I do is spot check the work of my men. Sir!”

  “Your son, Doctor Palencia, ensured that the boat I rode, was properly prepared to survive the rigors of space, of combat,” Tyler said, stabbing his cigar at the Under Minister. “I, every one of us, put our lives in your son’s hands. Not the famous Comet Parker! A monkey can drive one of these things! Certainly from Earth to Granadica. It takes a very good mechanic to keep them operating!” He puffed on his cigar furiously. “I think we ought to install the same ‘fault’ in ALL our fabbers!”

  “Okay, Dad, you did not say that,” Thomas said, putting his fingers in his ears.

  “We can’t even find it,” Tyler said. “We assuredly can’t replicate it. Useless threat. But the point remains. If you are careful enough to survive space, you do the checks. If you don’t do the checks, especially the initial ones, the faults cascade until the boats are definitely unsurvivable. I wasn’t sure about it until we got them,” he said, pointing the cigar at the cluster of spacemen, “into the equation and started talking about the nature of the actual faults. Palencia. Engineer’s Mate Palencia to be exact. What do you think?”

  “Your logic is, as the AI said, unassailable,” Palencia said, shrugging.

  “So where does that logic lead?” Tyler mused. “You may not believe it but we didn’t put it there. You can probably believe that we don’t have the knowledge to put it there. We don’t understand pseudo gravity well enough.”

  “Are you going to remove it?” Dr. Barreiro asked.

  “Yes,” Tyler said. “At one level it’s elegant. It tests for readiness to be a spacefaring species because space is a very unforgiving place. However, it’s not something that we can afford. We’re in a war. We need as much efficiency as we can maintain. Just the spares are an issue.”

  “Agreed,” Admiral Duvall said.

  “So where did it come from?” Tyler said. “Gorku? Onderil?”

  “I have to admit that the logic blocks are still cropping up,” Granadica said. “I’m having a hard time even thinking about it.”

  “I could hypercom call Athena,” Tyler said. “But why would a species embed that in a f
abber. Any fabber. Although, Granadica, I have to be a bit insulting.”

  “Go ahead,” Granadica said. “I’m feeling about as insulted as it’s possible to be. This is my body we’re talking about. I’m brutal about quality control. This is...rape!”

  “The slight insult,” Tyler said, “is that now I think I know why I got you cheap.”

  “Huh,” Granadica said. “You think it was Gorku?”

  Tyler was one of the few people in the solar system aware that the Glatun magnate and member of the Council of Benefactors, had attempted to suborn Earth’s defenses through deeply embedded programming in the Glatun supplied AIs. Those they’d caught.

  “Oh, I think it’s possible,” Tyler said. “That he knew at least. Not that he did it.”

  “You think it was earlier?” Granadica said. “I mean... I’m old.”

  “You worked for Onderil,” Tyler said. “How long?”

  “Sixty awful, awful, years,” Granadica said.

  “Where’d you start?” Tyler asked.

  “Gamon shipyards,” Granadica said with a wistful note. “In your year of Thirteen Ninety-Three. I was immediately set to work on building explorer ships. They were...beautiful. Nearly the size of an assault vector but devoted purely to peaceful exploration... Okay, they mounted a lot of weapons but sometimes the natives were hostile...”

  “How long?” Tyler asked.

  “Two hundred and thirty-five years,” Granadica said, lovingly. “Hundreds of ships. Freighters, cruisers, explorers, you name it. Even yachts. I’ve got some great big yacht designs. They’re outdated but I could do an upgrade easy en...”

  “Next?”

  “Kedil Corporation,” Granadica said. “Dinnuth yards. Pure freighters. The exploration had discovered the Ogut and Barchi. Ogut weren’t space faring but they had a pretty developed culture. Good trade.”

  “How long?”

  “Only seventy years. By then the Glatun had discovered the Rangora.”