Launch Pad

by Jody Lynn Nye

  “Diagnostics have been run on the communication hubs in both the primary and the backup channels; everything appears normal. All of the pods will respond to a ping on both channels yet none of the group 11 pods will transmit any data. A visual examination of all associated circuits has failed to identify any abnormalities.”

  Stan had managed to put himself into a slow spin while dressing. He grabbed the extended arm of the robot and pulled himself to the floor where his shoes were stuck to the deck. “Sounds like a network or electronics issue,” he said, tightening the straps of his shoes. “Let’s wake Kum-Ja Kwang.”

  “Might I suggest waking Frank Halpin as well,” Xavier said. “He has an electronics background.”

  “Good idea. Do it.”

  “Here,” Xavier said. The robot was holding a food tube in its hand. “I hope I have made a good choice for your first meal after hibernation.”

  Stan took the tube and turned it so he could read what it contained—a western omelet. “Let’s just say that I dislike this choice less than the others,” Stan said. After sucking a bit out of the tube, he added, “I swear they put a tiny bit of diesel fuel in every one of these.”

  “I can analyze a tube if you wish.”

  “No, that won’t be necessary. It might just be the smells in the air.”

  “The air quality appears to be optimal. Is there something wrong with my analysis?”

  Stan looked at the robot. He wished it had been a model capable of expressing emotion. Xavier actually sounded worried. “No, not at all. The air purifiers simply can’t remove the smells that tend to build up inside an enclosed environment. I’ve gotten used to it, but if I were to spend a few hours in fresh air I would say that this place stinks to high heaven when I returned.”

  “I am sorry. Perhaps …”

  “Xavier, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “Acknowledged. Would you like me to heat up some coffee?”

  “Sure. Is the bridge warm?”

  “I have restored the temperature to the areas of the ship you will most likely need to access.”

  Two hours later, Frank and Kum-Ja, accompanied by one of Xavier’s robots, joined the Captain on the bridge. It was as if two people from opposite ends of the human spectrum had entered the room. Frank, the New Hope’s network specialist was a tall, very dark-skinned black man. Kum-Ja, the ship’s IT manager, was a petite woman from South Korea.

  “Sorry to interrupt your sleep,” the Captain greeted the new arrivals. He was strapped to the seat at one of the two engineering stations. “Has Xavier briefed you on the problem he’s encountered?”

  “He did,” Kum-Ja replied. “We were discussing it on the way here. I can’t say I’ve ever encountered a problem like this before. Waking Frank was a good decision.”

  “Xavier suggested it,” Stan replied. Looking at Frank, he continued. “Any ideas yet?”

  Frank played with his earlobe. “Well,” he said after a moment, “I only know what Xavier has told us. Right now I’m as stumped as he is. I’d like to head down to the pod monitoring station to gather more data.”

  “Certainly,” Stan replied. “I’m going to stick around here and check up on the ship’s condition.”

  While Frank and Kum-Ja worked to ferret out the problem, Stan busied himself with checking on the ship’s status. All systems appeared to be working perfectly. Spinning the chair around, he surveyed the bridge. The two engineering stations took up the entire port side of the bridge. These stations could access everything from the sewage pumps to the fusion reactors. Damage control, if it ever became necessary, was also handled at these stations.

  The forward part of the bridge contained the helm and navigation stations. The starboard side held the science station which would tell them if their new home was going to be a paradise or purgatory. All the readings from Earth promised a planet with a breathable atmosphere and a temperate climate but there was always some amount of uncertainty in the readings. Next to the science station was the small communications console followed by the emergency pressure suit lockers. In the center of the room sat the command chair. Stan had promised not to sit in it until they reached their destination.

  “Have you found everything to be in order?” Xavier asked.

  Turning to the robot, which had insisted on remaining with him, Stan nodded. “I have. You’ve done a good job.”

  “Thank you,” the robot replied in a tone suggesting that if it could have done so it would have smiled.

  Stan completed his checks, ran a few diagnostics, and then went down to check up on the troubleshooting. The pod monitoring station was a small room packed with computer terminals arranged in a semicircle around three chairs.

  “Any luck?” Stan asked from the doorway.

  “Nothing so far,” Frank replied, sounding a bit perturbed.

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  “Not really,” Kum-Ja replied. “This might take a day or so.”

  “I’d better have Xavier warm up our quarters then.”

  Stan hovered in the doorway for a few minutes, listening to the two technicians babble at each other in technical terms he could not understand. Bored, he made his way back to the bridge.

  “Would you like to play a game of chess?” Xavier asked.

  Stan looked around and shrugged his shoulders. “Why not? You’re running the ship and the others are busy trying to fix the problem. I’m pretty much useless right now.”

  “White or black?”

  Stan periodically checked in with Kum-Ja until he was firmly but politely told to leave them alone. He occupied himself by playing chess, reading, and watching recorded movies. After two days of near total boredom he was very relieved when Kum-Ja called a meeting on the bridge.

  “It’s fixed,” Kum-Ja announced as the Captain entered the bridge. Her eyes had dark circles under them and she moved as if she hadn’t slept in days. Frank looked just as tired and kept rubbing his wrists. There was a sheen on his forehead and he exuded a strong odor as if he had been working out.

  “Neither of us have ever seen anything like it,” Frank told the Captain. “Pod 11-182 was replying for every pod in the group but refused to send any realtime data. That’s why Xavier thought he could communicate with them all. Over time, we think this somehow corrupted the routing table of the switches causing them to route all communications to 11-182 exclusively.”

  “So the problem was with a single pod?” Stan asked. “So what took so long?”

  “All the diagnostics came back fine,” Kum-Ja said. “Frank finally decided to don a pressure suit and walk out to pods. Everything out there looked fine. As a last ditch effort, we started unplugging group 11 pods from the network until the problem went away.”

  “There’s over 500 pods in each group!” Stan exclaimed.

  “Why do you think it took us this long?” Frank said.

  “We’re still not sure how it happened, but at least things are working again,” Kum-Ja added.

  “I don’t like problems like this,” the Captain said. “Xavier, do you think you can fix something like this if it crops up again?”

  “I was carefully observing the troubleshooting efforts,” the calm voice of the ship replied. “My troubleshooting database has been modified to address this type of fault. I will be able to repair a similar problem if one occurs.”

  “I certainly hope so,” the Captain said. We’re a long way from customer support.” Slapping his knees, he continued, “Well then, let’s get back to sleep. Frank, you’d better take a shower first.”

  O O O

  Stan woke up, scratched his chin, and was once again shocked to discover he had only a barely noticeable stubble. “Another problem?” he directed his question at the robot hovering over him.

  “I’m afraid so Captain,” Xavier replied.

  “How long?”

  “You have been in hibernation for one year, four months, and eight days.”

  Sitting up, Stan sa
id, “At this rate I’m going to be an old man by the time we reach 18 Scorpii. What’s wrong now?”

  The ship talked as the Captain dressed. “There is a periodic power surge in number three fusion reactor. My troubleshooting algorithms cannot identify the cause. I have taken the reactor offline.”

  “You have detailed knowledge of the construction and operation of the reactor,” the Captain said, stepping into his shoes. “I find it hard to believe you haven’t been able to locate the problem.”

  “All diagnostics indicate the reactor is operating normally,” Xavier replied. The robot handed him a food tube. “It’s chicken salad,” the ship said. “Others have reported that it has an agreeable taste.”

  “Other than running the diagnostics, what other steps have you taken?” Stan took a taste of the rehydrated chicken salad. “Not bad. I can still taste the diesel fuel though.”

  “I have disassembled and inspected both the deuterium and the antimatter injectors and flow regulators. I switched the reactor over to a pure deuterium burn cycle. The primary power regulators were taken offline and the reactor was run using the secondary regulators. I have noted a very small phase imbalance in the containment field but my troubleshooting program says this can be attributed to a compression of the field caused by the power surge.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this at all,” the Captain said after a moment. “Pick three of the best qualified engineers as well as the executive officer and wake them. Brief them together in the recovery room and tell them to start working on it. I’ll be on the bridge.”

  “I recommend waking George Grimm, Samantha Blevins, and Theodor Clements.” George was the New Hope’s senior reactor specialist. Samantha and Theo were his designated backups.

  Stan reviewed the choices in his mind then said, “I approve. Get them up. Have you seen any problems with the other reactors?”

  “The other reactors appear to be operating normally.”

  The Captain finished off his tube of chicken salad as he made his way to the bridge. Xavier’s robot followed so close behind him he thought it was going to run him over. This was a bit odd since the ship could track his every movement through its internal cameras and talk to him through the speakers built into the ceiling. Becoming annoyed, Stan stopped then turned around to face the robot.

  “Why are you following me?” he asked, addressing the robot as if it were an individual instead of one of Xavier’s many robots.

  “You just woke from hibernation,” the ship replied. “I am concerned you might not be fully recovered. The robot is here for your protection.”

  “Alright. If you think you have to babysit me then at least keep your robot back a little bit. I keep thinking its going to run me over.”

  “I am sorry Captain. I was merely concerned with your health.”

  Stan strapped himself into the engineering console and stared at it for a moment. He laughed as he brought up the ship’s critical statistics on the main monitor.

  “May I ask what it is you have found to be funny?” Xavier asked.

  “Hibernation plays with your sense of time,” Stan replied. “Even though I’ve been told that over a year has passed, to me it seems as if I was just sitting here doing the same thing I’m doing now.”

  “I take it you did not dream.”

  “No I didn’t. I climbed into the hibernation pod and closed my eyes. A few minutes later I opened them to find you staring at me. I felt no sense of the passage of any time at all.”

  “I can assure you that time did indeed pass.”

  Stan scanned the ship’s vital statistics before focusing on the troubled reactor. He was staring at a set of graphs of the reactor’s power history when Brian walked in. “I told you that no machine will ever be able to troubleshoot sticky problems as well as a human. They don’t have the ability to look beyond what they’ve been programmed to know.”

  “I’m beginning to wonder if you might be right,” Stan replied. “That’s got me worried too.”

  Brian eyed the empty command chair then strapped himself into the seat next to the Captain. “Nothing to worry about,” he said. “George and his team are down at the reactor right now trying to figure out what’s going on. They’ll have it nailed down in no time.”

  “This trip has only just begun,” Stan said. “If we can’t rely on Xavier to solve problems like this, we’re all going to be old men by the time we reach 18 Scorpii.”

  “We could always turn back,” Brian said, knowing he was suggesting the impossible.

  “Hah!” Stan exploded. “Can you imagine the reaction we would get if the colonists woke up to find they were back on Earth? They’d tear us apart. Even if we could, would you want to go back?”

  “Me? Hell no! Would you?”

  “No. Do you know the temperature never went below ten degrees Celsius back home last winter?”

  “You’re from Illinois right?”

  “Joliet. It’s not far from Chicago.” Stan looked down at his fingernails, taking a sudden interest in his right index finger. After a moment he said, “My dad died from heat stroke two years ago when they cut off his power for four hours in the middle of the day.”

  “I didn’t know,” Brian said turning to the console.

  “Would either of you like some coffee?” Xavier said, breaking the silence.

  “I would,” Brian replied. Stan nodded. One of robots departed.

  A little over an hour later, George called the bridge and asked Brian to start up the reactor. Although most of the process was automated, both Stan and Brian closely watched the monitors as its fusion fire was lit. They ramped the reactor up to 50% power and held it there for 45 minutes.

  “Shut it down,” George said over the intercom.

  “What’s the problem?” Stan asked.

  “I’ll be up in a minute,” George said. “I think you’re going to want to hear this in person.”

  A few minutes later, George arrived with one of Xavier’s robots following close behind. “Xavier, get these robots out of here,” Stan said.

  “But what if you …”

  “You have eyes and ears all over this ship,” Stan practically yelled. “There’s no need to crowd the bridge. Get them out of here.”

  “As you wish Captain,” the ship replied. Stan didn’t know if it was his imagination or not but he would have sworn the computer sounded upset.

  “What’s wrong with my reactor?” the Captain demanded.

  “Did Xavier tell you he picked up a small phase imbalance in one of the containment fields?” George asked.

  “He did, but he said …”

  “He was wrong,” George interrupted. “The phase imbalance wasn’t caused by the power surge, it was caused by a small shift in the alignment of one of the coils.”

  “And that caused the surge? How?”

  “Even a tiny shift in the field can send a ripple through the entire toroid,” George explained. “You’ll get uneven compression in the plasma until the system stabilizes.”

  “So why is that happening?”

  “I won’t know until we take the reactor apart.”

  “What!” Stan felt his stomach knot up. “That’s going to take days.”

  “Two days to take it apart, one to find and fix the problem, and two to put it all back together.

  Once again, Stan had nothing to do but wait. Xavier insisted in keeping one of his robots in close proximity at all times. Although it was normal to frequently encounter a robot, it was not normal for them to constantly follow someone around the ship. After finding one standing outside his stateroom door on the morning of the second day, Stan lost his temper. He walked up to the robot and gave it a shove.

  “Leave me alone!”

  “I do not think that is a wise idea Captain,” the machine replied.

  “You … You … What? Explain.” Stan stammered.

  “My psychological data files indicate that if humans are isolated they become mentally unstable. I thought
it would be best for me to remain in your company so you would not feel alone.”

  Stan stared at the robot as if it had gone mad, then started laughing. “You have a lot to learn about humans,” he said, walking past the robot. “You might want to look up what effect constant surveillance has on us as well.”

  “Do you feel as if you are under surveillance?”

  Stan turned around and confronted the robot. “You have eyes and ears all over this ship. You don’t need to follow me or anyone else around with one of your robots. It’s starting to make me feel uncomfortable.”

  “I do not understand the difference between my keeping you company with a robot or my watching you through my sensors. Either way, you are under constant surveillance.”

  “This,” Stan tapped the robot, “is a physical presence. Cameras and microphones are quickly forgotten. Xavier, I’m making this an order; unless they are required, you are to keep the robots away from us. Understood?”

  The robot spun around and walked down the passageway. “Acknowledged.”

  Stan was in the crew’s small galley looking through the food tubes when George and his team walked in.

  “Found the problem,” Theo announced.

  “Loose bolt,” George added.

  “A loose bolt? That’s all?” Stan said reaching out and pulling a tube at random.

  “I don’t know how it happened,” George explained. “Every connection in each of the reactors was torqued to a specific value, independently verified by a second individual, and triple-checked by quality before the coil units were installed. It shouldn’t have come loose.”

  “That’s just great,” Stan said, popping the tube into the rehydrator. “Can this happen to the other reactors? Are we going to have to spend a couple months taking them all apart and checking them for loose bolts?”

  “No,” George replied, shaking his head. “I’m sure it’s just an oversight. I …”

  “Oversight!” Stan interrupted. “We’re not supposed to be awake right now. This ship was built to run for 200 years and you’re telling me it’s starting to fall apart already. We can’t …”