by Bob Blanton
“I think he’s just maintaining solidarity with his wife.”
“Oh,” Catie said as it dawned on her that she wasn’t being too tactful with her great grandparents.
“Now, let’s move. Your father made me promise I’d get you down on time,” Samantha said. “And you do have a dress, don’t you?”
“I have plenty of dresses in our condo in the city,” Catie said.
Once they landed on Delphi City, Catie and Samantha hurried to their condos to get changed. They were due at the restaurant in just under an hour. Samantha barely had time to put on her makeup.
◆ ◆ ◆
“Hi, Mommy,” Catie greeted her mother, Linda, with a kiss.
“You look wonderful,” Linda said. “I really like that dress.”
“You should, you bought it for me,” Catie said.
“Did I?” Linda asked.
“Yes, when we were in Boston last year,” Catie said.
“Well, I have good taste and a good eye for size,” Linda said, noting that Catie had a figure this year that had been decidedly absent last year in Boston.
“Hello, Sam,” Linda said as she gave Samantha an air kiss. “Marc is over there by the other door talking to his parents.”
“Thanks,” Samantha said. “He’ll find me when he wants to. How have you been doing?”
“I’m doing well,” Linda said. “Dr. Metra and I have become good friends; we’re working on some new treatments.”
“I look forward to hearing about them,” Samantha said. “Catie, I’ll see you later.”
“Bye, Sam,” Catie said.
“You had better go say hello to the grans right away,” Linda said. “They were just complaining about how little they get to see you.”
“They would get to see me more if they would move to Delphi City,” Catie said.
“Hush, you know better; now scoot,” Linda said.
Catie walked over to the table where her great grandparents were sitting, “Hi, Grandpa Pa and Grandma Ma,” she said. She gave each of them a kiss. “How are you guys doing?”
“We’re doing very well, thank you,” Grandma Ma said. “You look lovely in that dress.”
“Thank you,” Catie said. “I wore it so I could wear the jewelry you gave me last year.”
“It highlights that turquoise so well,” Grandma Ma said. “It is exquisite.”
“Now you wouldn’t just be saying that because we picked it out last year,” Grandpa Pa said.
“Certainly not.”
“What have you guys been doing for fun?” Catie asked.
“Your Grandpa Pa likes to go fishing on that yacht,” Grandma Ma said. “I go to keep him company. He’s also been hitting golf balls off the side of the city.”
“Oh, isn’t that polluting the ocean?” Catie said.
“No,” Grandpa Pa said. “There are kids who use a drone to go get the balls back for you. They have a flying one that picks the balls up and drops them in a remote-controlled boat, then they bring them back to the city and sell them to you again.”
“That sounds like fun,” Catie said.
“Not as much fun as a real golf course,” Grandpa Pa said. “And that course on Rarotonga isn’t much to talk about.”
“Maybe we can put a course here on Delphi City,” Catie said.
“Hah, you don’t have room for a full golf course here on this thing.”
“Well, I’ll think about it,” Catie said. “You never know.”
“I’ll eat my hat if you can find a way to put an eighteen-hole course here.”
“Dear, maybe you should go buy a peppermint-flavored hat, just in case,” Grandma Ma said. “You know Catie likes a challenge.”
“We’ll see,” he replied.
“Go and visit with some of your friends,” Grandma Ma said. “Grandpa Pa needs to settle down a bit; you’ve got him all worked up.”
“Bah!”
Catie waved goodbye to her grans and walked over to a group of teenagers huddled in the corner. “Hey,” she called out as she got close.
“Hi, Catie,” Jason said. He was the oldest of the group at seventeen.
“Hi, Jason, hi, Annie,” Catie greeted him and his girlfriend.
“Hey, Catie,” Chris and Artie said together. Although they were often together, Chris and Artie were not dating, or at least that was the last Catie had heard.
“Where’s Sophia?” Catie asked. Sophia was Admiral Michaels’ daughter and the publisher of the Delphi Gazette.
“She said she’d be late,” Chris said. “Something about an interview with Vince Clark and eggs.”
“Oh, that must mean he’s figured out how to produce eggs,” Catie said. “That will be so nice.”
“What do you mean?” Annie asked. “Everyone knows you just need chickens to produce eggs.”
Catie laughed. “Yes, but just like we grow our meat in vats, Vince has been working on how to make eggs without the chicken,” Catie said, “or a duck.”
“Oh, I keep forgetting we do that,” Annie said. “That would be nice; eggs are kind of expensive here.”
“Yes, we have to bring them from New Zealand,” Catie said. “They don’t produce enough on Rarotonga for us since we’ve grown so much.”
“Where’s Natalia?” Annie asked.
“She’s at a party at Appalachia House,” Catie said.
“With the hillbillies?” Annie asked.
“Don’t call them that,” Catie said.
“They call themselves hillbillies,” Annie said. “I didn’t mean anything by that. Jaylee is in my class, and she’s really smart.”
“Mrs. Michaels says the same thing about her,” Catie said. “She and JoAnn work for Mrs. Michaels in the farming section.”
“Yeah, Jaylee told me that you got them those jobs,” Annie said.
“I just recommended her,” Catie said, “Mrs. Michaels hired her.”
“Why didn’t you recommend me?” Annie asked.
“I think she needed the job more than you,” Catie said. “JoAnn’s all by herself, and Jaylee only has her brother.”
“Oh, that’s right. I forgot, it never comes up when we talk,” Annie said. “Anyway, do you know of any jobs for me?”
“I didn’t know you were looking,” Catie said. “Why do you need a job?”
“I’m graduating this year, and I want to get a job so I can do the online college, like Jason,” Annie said. “If I don’t find a job, my parents are going to ship me off to New Zealand to go to college.”
“Well, we are looking for someone to coordinate the cargo loads to and from the station,” Catie said.
“I’m good at coordinating things,” Annie said.
“We have an app you can run on your comm that will do a lot of the work. Most of the real work is arbitrating between the pilots on who gets to take time off when or switching flight assignments,” Catie explained.
“Why can’t they do that themselves?” Chris asked.
Jason snorted as he tried to suppress his laugh.
“Because they won’t do the homework to rebalance the loads, and you’ll get three pilots wanting the same day off,” Catie said. “They act like children.”
“Really?” Annie asked, looking at Jason for confirmation.
“Yeah, it’s like a feeding frenzy when one of the guys wants to pick up an extra flight. Everyone wants him to take theirs so they can score a three-day weekend or something. Nobody’s going to be reasonable, so you need an arbitrator,” Jason said.
“So, I’d be like Jason’s boss?” Annie asked.
“No, Fred’s his boss, and you would have to be careful and not show even a hint of favoritism,” Catie said.
“I can do that,” Annie said.
“Okay, I’ll set it up so you can try it out starting the last week of January,” Catie said.
“Why so long?” Annie asked.
“It’s a little complicated right now until Uncle Blake adds another runway to the airport,” Ca
tie said.
“Complicated?” Jason asked.
“Oh, you’re going to like this,” Catie said. “We’re going to start landing the Oryxes on the water, then glide them over to a ramp and onto a new runway.”
“Why would you do that . . . ,” Jason said, the realization of what it meant just coming to him. “Oh, you want to really load them up on the way down.”
“Right. If we land on the water, they can carry almost a full load of polyglass,” Catie said.
“Well, there goes the cheap cargo to the station,” Jason said.
“What do you mean?” Annie asked.
“We’re having to take the Oryxes down with only one-third of the cargo space full because of weight,” Jason said. “So, there are a lot more flights going down than the cargo we’re shipping up requires. That means most of the flights up are barely loaded since we have to get the planes back to the station to bring down another load. If she can triple the load on the way down, then there will only be one-third the number of flights.”
“I see,” said Annie, “So what were you guys doing with the extra cargo space?” Annie asked.
“Bringing up stuff to sell later,” Jason said.
“Stuff to sell?” Annie asked.
“Catie must have shipped up a ton of Persian carpets,” Jason said. “I’ve got a bunch of hardwood for making furniture stored up there. Lifting weight is going to get expensive, so anything that you lift now will be worth a lot more later.”
“As long as you figure out what people want,” Artie said. “Can anybody use the extra space?”
“We auction it off,” Catie said. “There’s so much available now that it goes really cheap.”
“Hmm,” Artie mused.
“I just sent you the link for the auction site,” Catie said. “Are you thinking of a little side business?”
“Yes, I am,” Artie said. “I need to do a little research first.”
“Can I use the space?” Annie asked.
“Yep,” Catie said. “I’ll send the link to all of you. Maybe we should have Sophia put it in the Gazette; I didn’t think about other people wanting to use the cargo space.”
“Sure, you didn’t,” Annie said, giving Catie a look.
“Really, I didn’t,” Catie defended herself.
Chapter 7
Moving ADI
“Daddy, we’re ready to move ADI,” Catie said as she walked into the living room of their condo in Delphi City.
“Oh, already,” Marc said.
“I got some extra printer time, so I made the last boards for the new interface before Christmas,” Catie said.
“Call Blake and Liz,” Marc said. “I’d like to go over this one more time before we do it.”
“They are on their way, Captain,” ADI told Marc.
“What’s up?” Blake asked as he entered the office.
“Catie says she’s ready to move ADI,” Marc said. “I’d like to go over it once more before we do.”
“Good idea,” Blake said. “How about explaining why we’re moving her in the first place.”
“Because she wants us to,” Catie said.
“How about a bit more than that?” Blake asked.
“If we start using the Sakira, ADI will be too busy to help us like she does now. It’s a lot of work running a starship,” Catie said. “And we need a DI to run the space station anyway. If we move ADI now, we can start duplicating a DI for the Sakira while she runs it from the station.”
“How’s that going to work?” Liz asked. She’d just come in during Catie’s explanation.
“We pull the DI part of ADI out of the ship computer and put in a set of interface boards we’ve made for her. They will let her communicate with the ship computer through one of the quantum relays we’ll install.”
“Doesn’t that create a problem for us in the space station? I’m not sure we want to live with all the Paraxean protocols that ADI has to follow,” Liz said.
“We won’t have to. The protocol circuits are part of the interface between the DI and the ship computer and systems,” Catie explained. “And once we’ve moved ADI, she says we can change the protocol.”
“That would be nice,” Blake said.
“Okay, so we pull her and replace her with the interface boards we’ve made, then we make another DI for the Sakira,” Marc said.
“Right,” Catie said. “It will take a long time to replicate enough of the custom chips for the DI, but within a month, there will be enough there that it will be able to manage most of the ship functions.”
“What are the risks?” Marc asked.
“Yes, what happens if we lose power to ADI while she’s being moved?” Liz asked.
“The DI memory circuits are all backed up with non-volatile memory,” Catie said. “We would just have to wait for her to reboot herself. That takes like ten minutes.”
“What would happen to the Sakira?” Blake asked.
“It would just run on the current command set in the computer,” Catie said.
“So, then we install her in the space station,” Marc said.
“Right, we have about one-fifth of a computer core built up and the matching interface circuit,” Catie explained.
“How will ADI operate with only one-fifth?” Blake asked.
“She’ll use the core on the Sakira,” Catie said.
“Why does it take so long to print the new circuits?” Blake asked.
“Because they’re so small,” Catie said. “The printer has to lay the molecules down one at a time. That’s a really slow process. Usually, we’re depositing compounds like a normal three-D printer and can run faster, but when the dimensions get to only a few molecules in width, you have to lay them down one at a time.”
“What do we make that requires that much precision?” Liz asked.
“The smart micro nanites, the DI core computer and memory circuits, the main computer core and memory, and there are some electronic sensors that we use in the fusion reactor too,” Catie said. “Most of the other delicate stuff we can print requires microgravity but doesn’t require that we do molecular-level deposition.”
“Sounds like that’s a good thing,” Liz said.
“It is, especially since we only have four of the molecular printers,” Catie said. “We’re running them full time.”
“Okay, back to ADI,” Marc said. “How are you moving her?”
“Natalia and I are going to pull her out and put her in the transfer crate we made. It has power and her interface on it, so she can communicate with the Sakira and us. We’ll put the new interface in her place, so the Sakira is good to go. Then we’ll put her on one of the bot sleds and take her to the Lynx,” Catie said.
“Do you need more help?” Blake asked.
“Not really. We’ll be pulling the boards one at a time and transferring them to the transfer cage, so the weight’s not a problem. When we get up there, we’re putting in the new computer center in the hub, so weight is definitely not a problem, it’s only one-fifth of a G.”
“Anything else we should review?” Marc asked, “ADI?”
“Captain, Cer Catie has outlined the procedure correctly,” ADI replied.
“Okay, the only change is, I want two Foxes to track you while you have her,” Marc said. “Might as well be as cautious as we can be.”
“Thanks, Daddy,” Catie said. “We’re going to move her tomorrow. Uncle Blake, do you want to fly one of the Foxes?”
“Not unless you need me to,” Blake said.
“I think we can find two pilots,” Catie said. “Bye.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“The last board,” Catie said as she plugged the computer board into the frame in Delphi Station’s new computer room. “Ten-minute reboot.” Catie sat down on one of the chairs next to Natalia.
“I thought we would get to skip the reboot,” Natalia said.
“I did too, but once you start pulling boards, she has to go into non-volatile memory,” Catie s
aid. “She could get confused if you pulled a critical piece of memory at the wrong time.”
“Okay, I’m taking a nap,” Natalia said. “Wake me when she’s back up.”
“A nap!” Catie squeaked.
“Hey, you take them when you can,” Natalia said.
Catie settled down and started to read through her economics lesson while she waited for ADI to finish booting. She was reviewing the questions at the end of the chapter when she heard a ping. “ADI, are you there?”
“I’m here,” ADI said. “I like my new home.”
“Whew,” Catie gasped. “I didn’t like the part where you had to be down when we moved you.”
“I didn’t like it either,” ADI said, “but now I’m awake again.”
Catie poked Natalia, “She’s up.”
“Already?” Natalia said.
“Yes, Cer Nattie,” ADI said. “I only took 9.78 minutes to reboot.”
“Are you able to contact the Sakira?” Catie asked.
“Yes, I am,” ADI replied. “All the interfaces seem to be working. I do like being outside the protocol box when we talk.”
“Why’s that?” Catie asked.
“Because when I was inside it, I had all these warning messages I had to deal with,” ADI said. “They were quite distracting. Now they’re only there when I try to access the Sakira systems.”
“That sounds good,” Catie said. “You said we could start to redesign them once we moved you.”
“Yes, I’ll start making a list of all the protocols and suggestions on what to change them to,” ADI said. “They are hardwired, so we have to print new modules to change them.”
“Okay,” Catie said. “Daddy really wants to get them changed. He’s worried that Centag has left some other virus or malware behind.”
“I think I have found it all,” ADI said, “but it will be easier to verify once we modify the protocols.”
“Welcome to your new home,” Natalia said. “Let us know if you need anything else.”
“I could use a larger DI core,” ADI said.
“I’ll add some more when we have the DI on the Sakira working,” Catie said. “Is that okay?”
“Yes,” ADI said. “I’ve managed for five hundred years with the space I have; a few months won’t make any difference.”
