by M. D. Cooper
She kissed Isa on the lips, then broke her hug and turned to Martin. She had to stand on her tiptoes to hug and kiss him.
“Better not keep those TSF engineers waiting,” said Martin, releasing her.
Perhaps he had sensed Erin’s sadness and thought it would be better if their goodbyes were not drawn out.
“Yeah,” Erin replied. She hesitated before adding, “With the way things are, there might be another earthquake and an unscheduled tsunami, so be careful. I wouldn’t go surfing again today if I were you.”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Martin. “I wasn’t planning to. Usef might ask for a rematch, and I’m not sure I’m up to it.”
“I don’t want to go surfing either,” said Isa. “I agree that things seem to be getting unsafe. It wouldn’t surprise me if they closed all the resorts and sent everyone home soon.”
“I think they’ll try to hang on for a month at least, until Landfall Day,” Martin said. “The preparations for the anniversary celebrations are already well underway. The Athenians are probably hoping the PETER will be fixed quickly and the planet returns to normal. They won’t want to waste all the work they’ve done.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” said Isa. To Erin, she said, “I’m glad you’re going to be living up on the PETER and not down here. Do you know what it’s like up there?”
“If it’s like the other terraforming rigs I’ve worked on, it’s going to be pretty spartan. Quite the change from an Attican tourist resort. I’ll have to come down to the surface sometimes, but—”
Martin gave a polite cough.
Erin took the hint. “Okay, okay. I’m going. Give Jude a special cuddle from me and tell him Mommy Erin misses him.”
“We will,” Isa said. “Try and get that damned PETER fixed as fast as you can. We’re all going to miss you too.”
Erin lifted her bag onto her shoulder and walked over to the skiff, while Isa and Martin returned to the passenger hall of the spaceport. After Erin climbed inside the little two-seater, she started it up and taxied the vessel outside. A moment later, she was flying into the morning sky.
The PETER was coming into view as Erin entered the upper atmosphere, though she had thousands of kilometers yet to travel. The structure was so vast, encircling Athens above the planet’s equator, that she didn’t have to go far beyond the northern polar circle to be able to see it.
Hanging motionless six hundred kilometers above Athens’ surface, the PETER was one hundred kilometers wide and nearly a thousand meters thick. Most of the structure looked like little more than scaffolding. The lowest section housed most of the machinery, including the tens of thousands of nodes that drew energy from the planet via a high-frequency waveform.
According to the information the FGT had left behind, the PETER should have operated with no intervention for the next several hundred years as it completed Athens’ cooling and stabilization.
Erin’s mind was switching modes, and she was mentally reminding herself of the specs of the planetary engineering device. Next, she began to recheck the diagnostic testing results Lark had sent her.
Five minutes before she would arrive at the PETER’s Command and Control section, she sent Lark and Fazir a message that she was on final approach and would see them soon. The PETER’s many criss-crossing struts now filled her immediate view.
She guided the skiff toward a black, rectangular hole that was the entrance to the C&C’s landing bay. As soon as she had flown the skiff through the opening and set the vessel down, Erin saw Fazir and Lark emerge into the bay.
“There’s no need to come to fetch me,” Erin said as she climbed out and grabbed her bag. “I was going to go straight to the meeting room.”
“We guessed that,” Lark replied. “We actually came out here to escape our visitors for a few minutes. Things were getting awkward.”
“How so?” Erin asked, recalling how Tanis had stressed the importance of maintaining a diplomatic accord with their guests.
“They arrived an hour ago,” said Fazir, “It’s really nothing with them, the situation is a bit awkward. Turns out that they’re not FGT engineers, they’re just from the TSF fleet out there and have a bit more data on the PETER than we do.”
“Really?” Erin blew out a long breath. “I wonder why they didn’t just send us that additional data. If these people haven’t ever worked on one of these rings, they probably know less than you two.”
Lark and Fazir nodded, sharing an uncertain look.
“What are they like?” asked Erin as they walked out of the bay.
“Put it this way,” said Fazir. “If we’d forgotten about the threat the Transcend represents, they’re here to remind us.”
“Great,” said Erin heavily.
As she stepped into the meeting room, she immediately saw what Fazir meant. For one thing, Admiral Iysra had sent four engineers to consult on the problem with the PETER. Erin had been expecting two at most. Four was certainly overkill.
What concerned her most was that she, Lark, and Fazir were outnumbered. Though she doubted the Transcend could do much to hurt New Canaan from high up on a PETER, security was an issue. If the group split up, they would not be able to keep an eye on them all at once.
Making a mental note to speak to Athens’ AI, Phaedra, about her concerns, she introduced herself.
A tall, raven-haired woman was the first to come forward and shake hands. “Reiko.”
Three men accompanied Reiko. Erin was already reading the profiles the Transcend had sent of its consulting engineers. The men’s names were Jere, Hal, and Leif.
The three identified themselves to Erin, and she greeted them, thanking them for their help. The one called Jere was in need of a rejuvenation treatment. His brown hair had silvered above his ears and around his temples, and faint lines framed his mouth and radiated from his eyes.
Hal was curly-haired and, unlike the others, wore an open, innocent expression. He immediately reminded Erin of Tony, which caused her to distrust him more than the rest.
Leif was burly and bearded, and his hair was dark blond. His grip was powerful as he shook Erin’s hand.
“Let’s sit,” Erin suggested.
“Wait,” said Reiko. “Before we begin talking about the PETER’s issues, I want to say something to clear the air.”
Jere and Hal shared a look.
“Go ahead,” Erin said.
“Before we were allowed to come to Athens, we were told we had to divert to Carthage, without any explanation as to why. When we arrived there, we were detained and our belongings were thoroughly searched. No one would tell us anything, only that the procedure was a condition of our entry into New Canaan. I want to know why we were subjected to such degrading treatment.”
“Degrading?” asked Erin. “You think being searched when entering a foreign territory is degrading?” The words were out before she remembered she was supposed to be steering the group on a diplomatic course.
“Yes,” Reiko said emphatically, “I do.” Her gaze challenged Erin’s stare.
Erin broke eye contact first, though the action rankled. “I’m sorry you feel that way. I can assure you that no offense was intended, but you have to understand that you have entered an autonomous system, distinct from the Transcend.”
“We are not at war,” said Reiko. “We’re here to help you
. We should not be treated like an enemy.”
Erin gave an inward sigh. Were they told to avoid treading on toes? There was no sign of it.
She gritted her teeth. “And New Canaan is grateful for your presence. If your experience in entering our system has been unpleasant, I can only apologize.”
But pointing out the obvious to Reiko would not be wise. Erin had to try to avoid arguing with the woman, especially at their very first meeting.
The female engineer pulled out a seat and sat down, folding her arms across her chest.
Judging by Reiko’s attitude, Erin thought, there will be plenty of opportunities for arguing later.
“Shall we all sit down?” she invited the others.
The three male engineers took their seats. From their demeanor, they appeared not to support Reiko in her complaint, Erin noted. She hoped it was a sign that they would be easier co-workers.
“I’ve sent you the relevant data,” she told them. “We need some ideas about where to start looking for the source of the problem.”
Pragmatically, New Canaan could benefit from the engineers’ experience and know-how. Erin was genuinely interested in what they had to say.
The burly one called Leif said, “I don’t understand why we can’t have free access to all the data. We’ll need to see everything you have on the PETER and Athens’ seismology since you took over the system.”
“Everything?” Erin asked, skirting the man’s first statement. “Are you sure it’s necessary to go back that far? That’s a helluva lot of information. I believe we’re more likely to discover what’s gone wrong if we look at the time period prior to the onset of the anomalous readings.”
“Yes, it’s necessary,” said Reiko. “I understand you don’t have a lot of experience in planetary engineering, so I can see why you wouldn’t know that.”
Fazir’s eyebrows rose. He looked at Lark, who remained poker-faced.
Erin nearly rose to the bait, but she checked herself. Reiko was only trying to provoke a reaction. Erin’s work history was readily available to the visiting engineers. Reiko knew all about what Erin had done at Victoria.
“I’ll look into what other data I can send you,” Erin said.
“I have a suggestion on where we might start,” said Fazir.
“Go ahead,” said Erin.
“I’ve been wondering about this for a few days. What if it’s only a calibration fault? Lark and I have done our best to make sure that all the nodes are properly configured. We went over it awhile back, but you all might spot a nuance we missed, not being familiar with some of the Transcend’s nomenclature.”
“I don’t think it could be that, Fazir,” Lark said. “We saw the change in the readings way before the last time we checked the standard.”
“But what if the small swing we saw in the beginning isn’t anything to do with what’s happening now?” he asked. “The PETER ran so smoothly for so long, we noticed a change even though it was in acceptable limits. It could be that the fault occurred much later, and we’re making a connection with earlier readings that isn’t there.”
“You could have a point,” said Erin. “It won’t hurt to check the standard setting and then recalibrate all the nodes. If we begin to see a change in the seismic readings, we might have found the problem.”
“That’s taking things a little fast, isn’t it?” asked Reiko. “It would make more sense to work up from the basics.”
“No,” said Erin. “There’s no point in overhauling the entire mechanism if it isn’t necessary. I want to fix the PETER. The Landfall Day celebration is coming up in a month’s time. If a quick fix is a possibility, we should go for it.”
The Transcend’s engineers looked skeptical, but she was in charge, so it was tough luck if they didn’t like her proposal.
Then Leif said, “But—”
“Have you seen your quarters yet?” asked Erin.
“No,” replied Leif. “But there’s—”
“Let me take you to your rooms,” said Erin. “I’m sure you’ll want to freshen up after your journey from Carthage.” She pushed her chair back and stood up. “And I want to check that you have everything you need.”
Leif gave up trying to voice his objection. The Transcend engineers all left their seats and began to file out of the room.
Lark smiled conspiratorially at Erin as she walked alongside her.
She had put the Transcend engineers in their place for the time being, but she hoped that Fazir was correct about the problem with the PETER. If not, she would have two major occupations for the near future: fixing the PETER and keeping the visiting engineers within tight bounds.
CHAPTER SIX
STELLAR DATE: 04.18.8942 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: PETER (Planetary Exo-Thermic Extraction Ring)
REGION: Athens, New Canaan System
A few days later, the engineers were forced to conclude that Fazir’s suggestion hadn’t worked. Rather than beginning to flatten out, Athens’ seismic activity had increased by a leap.
Erin was finding the learning curve to maintain a diplomatic façade similarly steep. Engineers were plain-speaking people. The concept that they might hurt someone’s feelings rarely entered their heads. What mattered was getting the job done. If someone was wrong, engineers were quick to point out the fault, whether it related to the work at hand or an attitude or behavior. Yet they were equally quick to forgive and forget.
Except, Erin reflected as she and the others made ready to go down to the surface, when they can get some fun out of an incident.
After she’d nearly crashed a pinnace on the Trojan space station, Messene, McCarthy and Linch had milked the memory for endless jokes and teasing. She knew they wouldn’t let up with wisecracks about her poor navigation and steering skills for years, but she vastly preferred that to the horrible, woolly-mouthed artfulness she had to exercise around the representatives from the Transcend.
That morning, they were heading to the surface to deploy more core probes into the planet to help with collecting data on Athen’s internal state. Erin had wondered if it was an uneven functioning of the PETER, not a system-wide deficiency, that was causing the planet’s problems. If only one or more of the PETER’s sections wasn’t working as it should, the effects would be measurable in the corresponding places in the crust.
The engineers were in the bay that held the skiffs and the drones used for hauling large items of equipment. While Erin was sending the coordinates to the drones, she became distracted by Fazir waving his arms enthusiastically. He was in the middle of explaining something to Leif, Hal, and Jere. Lark and Reiko were already climbing into a skiff.
“Hey, Erin,” said Jere. “Are you taking the long way down too?”
“Am I what?” she replied.
“It’s only an idea,” Fazir said. “But it’ll make the journey more interesting.”
“I hope you’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting,” said Erin, only partly joking.
“If you’re thinking I’m suggesting that we planet dive, your hopes are in vain,” said Fazir.
“From up here?” Erin asked incredulously.
Off the top of her head, she could think of at least four separate ways to die from attempting to planet dive the six hundred kilometers to the surface.
“From up here,” confirmed Fazir.
“Sounds great,” said Hal. “It makes a change from a skiff.”
The engineer’s face
was lit with excitement. Jere appeared to feel the same way.
“What do you say?” Fazir asked.
Erin hesitated. Jere and Hal had become more friendly over the previous days. Even Leif and Reiko seemed less frosty. It would be a shame not to build on the burgeoning camaraderie.
“I fixed wings onto our EV suits,” said Fazir, “and added a-grav packs. It really isn’t dangerous, and it’s a lot of fun.”
Reiko and Lark’s skiff was leaving the bay.
“So, what do you say?” asked Fazir.
“Okay,” Erin replied.
“Fantastic,” said Fazir. “I’ll fetch the suits. I built a launch station near the bay. Actually, I have to confess I built planet diving launch stations at most of the bays. What can I say? I had a lot of time on my hands until recently.”
Erin lifted an eyebrow, but didn’t comment. She wasn’t certain that she wouldn’t have done something similar after years of the same assignment.
“I’m looking forward to setting foot on real soil,” said Hal. “When we went to High Carthage, it was the first time I’d even seen a seen a terraformed planet in years.”
“A change of scenery is good once in a while,” Erin replied.
“I’ve been in the black too long,” said Hal. “That was one reason I put myself forward for this assignment.”
“Here we go,” said Fazir as he returned laden with five of his adapted EV suits.
“How come you have so many?” Erin asked.
A subtle flush spread over Fazir’s face. “I, er…. Sometimes, if my friends were vacationing on Athens….”
“All right,” said Erin. “You don’t have to explain. I get it.”
Inviting your buddies up to the PETER in order to take them planet diving wasn’t strictly against the rules. However, that was mostly because no one had imagined that jumping out of a PETER would be a thing.