The deck doors and elevator doors were made of a rigid mesh that was light and strong; you could also see through it. Wills watched the parade of cargo trucks as they wound up the spiral ramp that went from deck to deck along the outer hull and got rapidly further from him as the decks he passed got wider and wider. Next came the fourteen remaining passenger decks; they were all well lit and looked ready for use, but he didn’t see a single person on any of them. Finally, he entered a bewildering structural nightmare that reached from the core to the hull and filled the three missing passenger decks below Main Engineering. His eyes were still absorbing the tangled sight when the scene abruptly changed to something even more unexpected.
The door opened on what could be called a vista. He stepped from the elevator and had to lean back to take in the extremity of the scene. A quick calculation told him that he was looking from the core to the hull horizontally and an open space of the missing seventeen passenger decks and five old engineering decks vertically. For the first time, he had a real appreciation for just how big the Weasel was. The original five deck open space of the old engineering space didn’t come close to this.
When he brought his head back down to level, he saw Helt and CeCe coming around the core; they were both grinning at him.
“Okay, so I look like a damned tourist.”
Wills swept an arm, “I signed off on this, but it looks like I didn’t really know what I was doing. What was the original idea again?”
Helt rubbed his chin; he had to think about that, “As I remember it, there was the thought that we would eventually bypass Forest and establish a new base of operations further out, or we would just hit class-three systems and begin outer system mining operations. Either way, we would need an initial power source, especially for the mining, and using the Weasel with the Berlin’s reactors seemed like a good way to use otherwise useless equipment. It also gave us a good work project when normal traffic fell off.”
Wills began walking around the core; he was now starting to see things from his more normal engineer’s point of view. The Berlin was a warship that had been built in the early, more paranoid, days of humanity’s expansion. It was armed with four neutron beam projectors that were capable of carving up fair-sized asteroids. The power required by the gravity pinch to create the fusion impulse and direct the neutron flow was immense in those earlier projectors.
The Berlin had never fought any aliens, and had been reduced to the role of a transport ship as time went on. It had crashed on Rose, the largest of Archer’s three moons when its lift ring malfunctioned. It was declared a total loss, and the beam projectors were ordered destroyed; the remaining hull, systems, and one item of cargo were given over to the Archer authorities. The twelve, old-style, twenty-terawatt, fusion reactors that were needed to power those projectors now occupied an enormous amount of space inside the Weasel; squeezed in between them were the six, much smaller, one-terawatt original reactors of the Weasel.
Wills stopped and pointed up into the dizzying mass of structural support that locked the reactors firmly in place and provided anchoring for the cabling and conduits.
“I think I’m seeing a normal attachment to the ship’s systems from the Berlin’s reactors, including the drive.” He looked at Helt, “Is that right?”
Helt shrugged, “In the end, it was easier to just tie everything together and let the Silverman Integrator see everything as one power source. If any of them have a problem, they can be taken out of the loop and things go on normally.” He nodded toward the massive reactors, “Every reactor has a backup cooling system, and the deck beneath our feet has a full load-balancing accumulator bank for each reactor. It may not be the classiest and most intellectual way to have done it, but it guarantees simplicity and dependability.”
They walked a little further around the core to an enclosed structure that had been built between two of the Berlin reactors. Wills recognized it as a modified version of the original engineering station. Helt pressed the lock plate to open the door and they went in.
The small room contained a “U” shaped console covered with input panels below a wall covered with two rows of screens. Only one of the three chairs was occupied, but all of the screens were operating; some showed system readings and others showed views inside and outside of the ship.
Helt indicated the man sitting in the center chair, “This is Chief Alesson; when we completed the reactor work we dropped the external power line and have had one of the reactors supplying all needed power. Of course, since then we have had someone on watch whenever a reactor was operating; which has been, pretty much, 26/7 for the last year. The Chief here had the honor of being the first to bring all reactors up to idle/stand-by when we heard your announcement.
“How did it go Chief? I assume there were no problems as the Weasel is still here, you’re still alive, and I don’t smell smoke.”
Chief Alesson pivoted his chair to face the trio, “Actually, Captain, I’ve been waiting to talk to you about that. I’ve done a thousand reactor start-ups over the years, but never anything like this. Normally, I would have expected a system this large to be about halfway through the sequence now instead of long-since finished. It should have been a series of cross-lights and primary pinch over-temp warnings. I was half expecting to shut it down and go manual. The Silverman AI has only done single starts as we tested each installation; I think it learns things far faster than we expected.”
Helt looked at Wills with his eyebrows raised, “I guess we knew it would work, just not how well.”
Wills scanned the screens and found the two at the center of the cluster that showed the operational status of the eighteen reactors; all of them showed a dead smooth green line at the lowest level. The accompanying accumulator screens showed perfect balance.
Wills nodded and spread his hands to indicate everything around them, “Very nice, Captain; my compliments to you and your crew. Which way to the bridge?”
Helt smiled broadly at the praise and indicated the elevator across from the engineering station.
#
The ride upward until they entered the crew decks was like climbing past tall buildings; the view was impressive to say the least. They passed the five decks that were for the crew and came to the last stop on the elevator’s panel.
Even though the highest button indicated it was for the bridge, the elevator actually stopped one level short of it. This deck was for the primary computers and electronic control systems. The structural support core had stopped at the deck below, and the ten elevators were the only part that rose to this level. At this level, the back doors of the elevator now opened so that the riders stepped into a room directly above the core. This level and several others would be off limits to passengers during normal operations.
They faced a stairway that went up to the bridge; all of the elevators ended at an identical stairway. Wills stepped out and stopped; he turned, went around the side of the stairway, and down a short hallway to a heavy, armored door. As the door opened, all three of them noticed a slight ozone smell of electrical equipment.
The large room would normally have been jammed with multiple computer systems and other electronics that controlled everything from the plumbing to the Isolator Drive. A lot of it had been removed and replaced with the Silverman Integrator that now sat at the center of the room with a short cable of hair-thin optic fibers connecting it to a Director Gate system mounted just above it.
Wills had last seen the silver, forty centimeter diameter, one meter tall cylinder ten years ago when it had been removed from the vault in the HQ building. It had been the primary cargo item on the Berlin and had been damaged in the crash. It was supposed to take over as a planetary and system integrator and coordinate operations. Its molecular circuitry had been put together by the latest experimental form of nano manufacturing and its cost was unbelievable. The damage that destroyed most of its connectivity ability and the discovery of Forest had turned it into a gold-plated brick.
For years it sat in the vault until someone got the bright idea of turning it into a ship controller to replace the Weasel’s worn out system that wouldn’t have been able to handle the Berlin’s reactors anyway; it still had more than enough connectivity for the systems in a starship. The idea was a good one, but Wills smiled as he remembered his panic at the thought of turning something that cost more than the entire payroll of Archer into a tool to drive nails.
He turned and saw the smiles on the faces of Helt and CeCe; they remembered.
“Alright, so I was hard to convince; it was useless and this was a good idea. But it still bothers me that this thing cost more than this entire ship.”
As they turned back to the door, CeCe said, “Actually, sir, about fourteen times more than this entire ship.”
##
Lieutenant Hayes drove up to the boarding ladder of the Santana and waved at Chief Boreman, the crew chief for the two scout ships, who was checking something inside the entrance hatch. Hayes pulled out the two heavy bags that held his personal gear.
“Got room for these, Chief?”
Boreman looked up the ladder to the command deck and yelled, “BLAKE, YOU THERE?”
A head appeared at the upper end of the ladder, “Yo, Chief!”
“Stick these in the Lieutenant’s compartment.” He then handed the two bags up the ladder.
“How’s it going, Chief?”
“No problems, Lieutenant; all systems are clean and green, tanks are full, and provisions are aboard for you and two passengers. Speaking of which: here they come.”
Boreman pointed over Hayes’ head, and he turned to see a floater headed their way. When it stopped near the ship, Hayes went over to help with the gear.
“Doctor Ames, Doctor Twisst, I’m Easton Hayes, your pilot.”
They shook hands all around and Ames looked up at the bulk of the scout ship, “It is larger than I thought it would be; I had heard disturbing rumors that scout ships were extremely small.”
Hayes smiled, “Actually, Doc, the rumors are true.”
He turned and pointed up at the ellipsoid shape of the Santana; the fifty-two meter tall ship had a central bulge and tapered to rounded points at the top and bottom.
“The forward end of the ship houses the mass resonator and fuel tanks. The wider center section contains the four reactors, the drive, and the lift ring. The remainder of the hull below that is all there is for the control and environmental systems, food, water, and crew accommodations. You will notice that the four landing struts are only retracted into external housings on the hull. There is very little interior room, and three people are the limit.”
Ames and Twisst looked at each other; they did not look happy.
“However, on the up-side, the trip to Forest will only take three days in a scout ship.”
Hayes grabbed a couple of their bags, “Let’s get loaded and organized, the Admiral wants us out of here yesterday.”
##
The stairs to the Weasel’s bridge put them at the end of a ramp that followed the shallow arch of the top of the hull and led straight in to the flight command center. It was arranged in a complete circle with the command area on the inside. The actual command console was a low, horizontal panel with two seats in front of it and a curved seating area around a low table for guests or observers behind them. The circle that surrounded the seats and console was a ring of large screens that were currently set to give a full exterior view from the perspective of the ship’s equator just below the lift ring. It was like standing on a tower looking out over Temple Bay, Michigan City, the ocean, and the wooded hills stretching to the horizon.
Wills stood between the two chairs at the center of the display and turned in a full circle, “Finally, a view of the area that doesn’t include the Weasel.”
Helt started tapping on an input panel, “You should see this view at night when Rose is full. Commander, enter an access code.”
CeCe reached over and tapped in a series of characters. Helt tapped again.
“Admiral, your turn.”
Wills reached and tapped in a code sequence.
Once again, Helt completed the process, “You now have full command authority of the Weasel. The three of us are the only ones that can access the flight systems.”
Wills stared blankly at the console as his mind went somewhere else. He turned to face Helt, “The Silverman has never done an isolator start and was never intended to; how will it handle that?”
Helt nodded, “True, but it’s had the full Rhino operations file loaded plus the current modifications. I expect it will do a standard initiation and improve from there. The baseline procedure is to start with standard routines. I expect no problems; in fact, now that I think of it, everything we have hooked into it has run dead smooth since then or has had function errors reported almost immediately.”
Helt lifted his eyebrows and shrugged, “Everything it has touched has been pure gold.”
Wills thought and chuckled, “Yeah, I thought it was interesting that the elevator was not only waiting for me at the strut platform but the door opened before I could press the button. Okay, so far, so good; what’s next?”
CeCe had been looking at the console, “How about a crew? This console has been simplified and old memories are creaking their way out of the dust, so I’m experiencing a growing sense of confidence. The big problem now seems to be getting enough people to handle the ship and, especially, 100,000 or more passengers that have never seen our technology.”
The three of them looked at each other as that question bounced around their heads. Wills pointed a question at Helt, “How many of your people can we take with us? They’re the ones that actually know this ship.”
“Hmm . . . well, I only have fifty-three people for the entire port facility, and about thirty, give or take, were involved with the Weasel at any one time. I suppose I could bring forty-five of them with us.”
CeCe looked at Wills, “These ships usually had a crew of 1,700.”
Wills pointed at Helt, “Get on your pad and get your people on this ship.”
He then pointed at CeCe, “Call the medical people and see who they can spare. Oh, and then call Stoker and Treelam; advise them that we are on the Weasel and to get here ASAP.”
Wills got out his own pad and called Erica.
“Yes, Admiral, what can I do for you?”
“Slight change of plans; notify any crew members coming down from the ships in orbit that I need volunteers for duty on the Weasel. Also, put out a general notice to Archer that we need a few hundred volunteers with teaching, psychology, or shipboard experience; use your criminal files to filter out any potential troublemakers. Make that same offer to any passengers from the Gregory Falls that you judge to be fit enough. Make it clear to everyone that this will not be a picnic; they will be dealing with an alien but human-like species that will have had no chance to get used to the idea that we exist. Anyone that comes with us should be prepared for a very stressful and possibly dangerous situation.”
“Where do you want them and when?”
“Have them gather at the Port Terminal building and arrange for shuttles to get them out to the Weasel; there’s enough of a traffic jam under the ship as it is. Be sure to tell them that a round trip should be about three weeks, and have them here within eight hours.”
Erica nodded and Wills cut the connection. CeCe was at the edge of the circle talking to someone on her pad. Helt was at the console and had switched some of the screens to a view along the top of the ship. There were two large floaters hanging next to the hull. One of them was rigidly connected to a heavy metal pipe that was covered with ice and a cloud of vapor as it transferred deuterium fuel to the cryogenic tanks inside the structural core. The second floater was filling the water tanks.
“We should have full tanks in a couple of hours and a full load of provisions in about six hours.” Helt turned to face Wills, “My office is notifying everyone that is tapped for
this trip; they should have their gear aboard soon after provisioning is finished.”
“Good, I have a number of extra people on the way. Get some of your people organized to get them up to the crew decks. I gave them an eight hour window; after that, you can release the ship at any time. Your people will have ten days to train them.”
CeCe walked up to them, “I have a couple of dozen medical people on the way. Now, how about explaining this console?”
##
Hayes had Ames and Twisst lying on their acceleration pads/bunks in the tiny cubicles off the narrow passage. He stood on the ladder that ran up between them to the hygiene and food service compartments above them.
“I don’t know how much the two of you know about life on a scout ship, so I’ll run through the standard speech. Do either of you have a problem with free-fall?”
That question got a startled look from both of them.
“Okay, I’ll take that as a ‘yes’. Scout ships aren’t big enough to carry grav plates. The pads you’re lying on are just for acceleration situations and only provide negative effort against positive-g in excess of 1.2 g. While we are in isolator drive we will be in a zero-g condition, so keep that lap belt fastened if you don’t want to float away; it’s only during maneuvering with the AG ring that we will experience g-forces, and those can easily reach lethal levels. If you have any gear that cannot withstand heavy g-loading, I suggest you put it on the pad with you.”
Ariticle Six Page 4
