by Neely Dobbs
CHAPTER 36: InterSpace
The ship glided smoothly through the glowing tunnel toward its destination. Following ADIZ's initial input, their guidance was largely automated; both passenger and pilot could lapse into relative inactivity until the journey was almost complete. In such a period of extended inactivity, his sub-processor automatically activated a series of diagnostic tests. All activities since the last diagnostic routine were examined for anomalies, including minor maintenance needs such as worn components and lubricant levels.
Normally, ADIZ was not consciously aware of these diagnostics. The sub-processor simply triggered a “begin maintenance” directive. This diagnostic process was different.
His full attention was suddenly drawn to a serious anomaly: the chronographic record contained a critical discontinuity: almost an hour of his activities had gone totally unrecorded. During that hour, his actions were suspect; he might simply have malfunctioned— or committed acts treasonous to the Coalition.
This anomaly should have triggered an instant alert in his central processor error reporting function, demanding immediate remedial measures. That the alert had not been generated was a separate systemic failure and an additional cause for alarm.
ADIZ faced a critical decision. He was acutely aware Hoga had somehow taken control of his activities for a period of time, but at least it had been recorded. The discontinuity in the activity record, however, could portend catastrophic failure. The danger of critical malfunction occurring while piloting the ship conflicted with the importance of completing his current mission.
Further, Jazon was not “current” in this ship's operation. Could the Admiral make a successful landing without my assistance? Too many variables existed for ADIZ to accurately compute the Admiral's emergency capabilities. However, they were past the trip’s mid-point; a landing would occur sooner if they continued to their destination than if they returned to Kepren. That fact carried sufficient weight to tip the mathematical scales in favor of his maintaining the helm and completing the trip.
He returned to the discontinuity problem. Could the record actually be hidden somewhere in his memory? That should not be possible. However, the discontinuity should not have been possible. He immediately initiated a complete memory search. He simultaneously examined the diagnostic log, analyzing the significance of each item, no matter how mundane. If any component needed lubrication, he ran a thorough diagnostic to search for any hidden cause of his dilemma. His sub-search was thorough but—after more than two hours— it had revealed nothing unusual.
Return to normal space would occur in less than twelve minutes. He could not risk continuing the memory search once that insertion began, but the issue was resolved as the memory check reported completion. The results were both reassuring and puzzling. No renegade operational code existed which might activate at a critical moment. However, the final four bytes of extreme high memory, the last memory checked, contained four alpha-numeric characters: H O G A