Spindown

by Andy Crawford

  She nodded agreement, and then changed the subject and asked if he’d heard about the supposedly alien communications signals. Konami said that the Communications department head brought it up in every meeting.

  “Is it just coincidence, do you think?”

  The chief inspector blinked. “You mean could they be right, that aliens are trying to turn us around?”

  She chuckled. “No, I mean is it really coincidence that we see these posts at the same time as the murders? Could they be connected, in a totally non-alien way?”

  His eyes went wide. “I don’t know, but that’s a good point. Put Wren on it.”

  “Wren?”

  “Yeah. Maybe he can dig up the source of the anonymous posts.”

  CHAPTER 23

  “You’re as clumsy as an Earther!” laughed Madani, gracefully “climbing” along the Engineering passageway.

  “I am an Earther, remember?” said Konami, still having trouble with the right amount of force to use with each “step” in the zero-gravity Engineering spaces aft of the Cans. In addition to no visual indicators of “up” and “down,” the Engineering spaces were much more spartan and industrial than even the function-driven passageways beneath the surface in the Cans.

  Madani crooked a finger. “No one onboard is an Earther anymore, or a Martian, or Lunan, or Jovian. We’re all Aoteans now, and in a few decades we’ll all be... Samwisers? Samwiseans?”

  “Samwitians?” offered Konami.

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  Konami miscalculated once again and bumped his knee on a handhold, cursing.

  “How long has it been since you stepped outside of the Cans?” asked Madani.

  He thought about it. “Cycles, I think. I had to see every space onboard during quals, of course, but the zero-g always made me nauseous.”

  “Are you okay now?”

  He smiled. “Yeah, one of your techs gave me something, just in case.”

  “Smart move.”

  “Well this is one of the only spots on the ship we haven’t explored together, and I didn’t want to be sick... I don’t imagine zero-g vomit is much fun for anyone.”

  She pulled him abruptly, giving him a momentary sense of vertigo, before embracing him with a kiss. “You know what’s a lot of fun in zero-g?” she whispered.

  A Power technician scampered by adroitly before he could answer. He waited until the Tech was gone. “I think I might like to find out...”

  With a smile, she pulled him along silently until they found an unoccupied Bot service space. Ignoring the clicks of a recharging DustBot, Madani slid the door shut and unzipped her coverall.

  The buzz of his wearable snapped the doctor and the chief inspector out of their post-coital reverie. The Medical department head carefully disengaged herself from their floating embrace as they were, almost imperceptibly, pulled toward one bulkhead of the service space by Aotea’s gentle acceleration. The message was a text from Mattoso: news from Wren on the signals — URGENT — my quarters. Konami hastily dressed himself and bid Madani farewell, exerting massive willpower to pull away from her deep and passionate kiss before making his way through the aft Ring into the aft Can, meeting Lieutenant Mattoso and Data Technician Third Class Wren in Mattoso’s quarters and immediately asking what they found.

  Wren looked at Mattoso for a moment before answering Konami’s question, reassured by her nod. The Lieutenant’s quarters seemed awfully claustrophobic for the three of them, but Konami had learned that Aoteans had more tolerance for close quarters than his fellow Earthers.

  “The signals,” started the Data technician. “First, the small news. The strange posts are from public consoles around the ship, and anonymous accounts. Nothing we can do there.”

  Goddamnit. On Earth there was always some camera running, whether on a bystander or from a store across the street. That obviously wasn’t allowed onboard.

  “Secondly, the alien stuff — they’re coming from onboard.”

  Konami’s jaw dropped. “Onboard? How on Earth...?”

  “He monitored data traffic at the same time as Comms Central was hearing the signals,” cut in Mattoso.

  “Right,” added Wren. “And there was a big spike in processing usage just a few seconds before the signals started, and it stopped right when they stopped.”

  “Hold on,” said Konami. “Make it simpler for me.”

  Mattoso took a breath. “From Ops, I asked Comms to report as soon as the signals started, at the same time that Wren was monitoring data usage. Pretty simple.”

  “So there was a correlation?” asked Konami.

  “More than a correlation,” answered Wren. “It was fucking on the nose. Like less than a minute before the signals started, I had my processing spike, and it was big — like a chunk of one percent of the whole damn ship’s processing power. And then it stopped at the exact same time that the signals stopped — I checked both logs, and they stopped within nanoseconds. And it happened twice — just the same way, both times.”

  “If it was on the nose, why that extra minute before?”

  Mattoso tilted her head. “Well, we’re not exactly sure. But whatever it was, I’m sure it took some preparation. Maybe that minute was for preparation.”

  Konami asked if they could find the source of the increased processing.

  The young Data technician chuckled. “A processor’s a processor. You can ask for any task — say, run a vid — from your wearable right here, and it could utilize any of the processors, from the little ones in the wearables to the big ones in Data Central, or even the backups a few decks down, if the demand is high.”

  “So it doesn’t matter which processor was used?” Konami inquired.

  “No — it’s selected automatically by the data queue protocol — it balances processing loads and whatnot.”

  “Can we find out anything about the processing tasks, or who was using it?”

  Wren groaned. “Ugh.”

  Konami raised his eyebrows. “Well?”

  “I suppose. Long fucking task, though. Don’t expect anything soon — it’s like digging through a garbage dump.”

  “How solid is this?” asked the chief inspector, debating in his mind whether he should tell his superiors. Don’t be the senior man with a secret was a motto a veteran cop in Lagos told him many years before.

  “Solid as the hull,” said Wren. “No doubt about it.”

  Konami prepared himself to repeat Wren’s assurance as the department heads assembled in the conference room, sure that his news would be the biggest bombshell of the meeting. He had been just about to inform Mayor Akunle when the meeting was called.

  When everyone was seated, the mayor turned to Konami, asking him to report on the roving watchstanders. The Captain added that it should be brief.

  Konami cleared his throat. “The watches are going fine. Nothing to report.”

  The captain nodded to Commander Konrote, head of Gravity and Transportation, who stood, and Konami awkwardly resumed his seat.

  “Late yesterday the vibration sensor for the forward Can’s rotation gears tripped an alarm,” said the GravTran Commander. This single statement was enough to trigger shock from the other department heads — everyone was well aware of the significance of the rotation gears of both Cans for the normal operation of Aotea. “Our operational inspection revealed signs of damage, but we won’t know the full extent until we can open it up and look inside.”

  A glance from Captain Horovitz silenced the growing murmurs.

  Commander Konrote continued. “You all know what that means. We rig for loss of gravity in the forward Can, move anything necessary to the aft Can, and then Spindown the forward Can.” Even the glare of the Commanding Officer couldn’t silence a smattering of curses from the department heads. Konami shook his head to himself as he realized what that would mean — oddly, his first thought was for his jenji dog Kostya. With no hands to grasp and pull themselves from handhold to handhold, dogs and cats were
unable to adapt to zero-gravity. Konami could stay in his quarters in the forward Can if he didn’t mind sleeping in zero-g, but Kostya would have to find temporary accommodations in the aft Can. Maybe Kiro can watch her for me.

  “We don’t know the extent of the damage, but it could be getting worse with every rotation,” explained Konrote. “We need to Spindown as soon as possible.”

  “With that in mind,” said Captain Horovitz as she flicked the comms button on the monitor at the head of the table. “Operations, this is the captain. Read the announcement brief and rig the forward Can for loss of gravity.”

  As the Officer of the Deck read a script explaining the need for Spindown and ordering the loss of gravity rig on the ship-wide announcing circuits, Konami realized that his news about the fake signals might be small potatoes. Nevertheless, he spoke up before the captain and mayor adjourned the meeting.

  “One thing, about the signals.”

  Horovitz raised her eyebrows skeptically. “What signals?”

  Konami gestured to Comms Officer Olin. “The aliens — or fake aliens, as we found out.” He explained how he and Lieutenant Mattoso had determined that the signals were faked, careful to leave out Wren’s involvement.

  “Just processor noise?” asked Hamad Maltin, one of the Bigwigs.

  At the same time, the Data Systems director, Shin, inquired why he hadn’t been informed.

  “You’re being informed now, Director,” answered Konami. From his conversations with Data technicians and the department master tech, he had the impression that Shin was more of an administrator than a data engineer.

  The captain tilted her head and addressed the chief inspector, echoing Maltin’s question. “Was the processing spike the only evidence?”

  “No,” he said, relieved that Mattoso had, just before the meeting, thought of a possible second piece of evidence. Konami read off his projection as Mattoso and Wren transmitted the data to him. “We also checked the Power logs, on the assumption that the signals would require a significant power source to match the power we would expect from an interstellar signal. Sure enough, we found a power usage spike at the same time as the signals. This one was even more precise — it started at the exact same time that the signal started, and stopped at the same time the signal stopped.”

  The murmurs started again, and this time Captain Horovitz didn’t even try to stop it.

  “I’m transmitting our findings so that each one of you can give us a second check,” Konami added.

  After reviewing for a few minutes, the Engineering and Comms department heads both agreed that the data looked conclusive. Konami didn’t miss the nods exchanged between the Bigwigs and the captain as well.

  “But how is that possible?” asked Shin. “Can’t Comms tell the difference between a signal generated onboard and a signal generated from a distance?”

  Lieutenant Commander Olin’s eyes flashed. “Normally, we can. But that’s just from spatial relationships — over time, as we move, the signal vector will change slightly, as our relative positions change. We don’t normally think someone would fake a signal, so we don’t normally account for any possibility that someone is changing that vector of a signal generated from onboard the ship on purpose.”

  Shin still appeared confused.

  Olin sighed, explaining the technical details – with single boosters and a specific spatial arrangement, they could simulate a distant source.

  Konami tried to follow along with the complicated explanation. He thought he got the gist of it — multiple signal-sources, which would have been coordinated and mobile, shooting signals at each sensor from a certain vector, very slowly moving (just millimeters, if he understood correctly) to simulate a source that was millions or billions of kilometers away.

  A perturbed Commander Konrote interrupted and emphasized the need to supervise the zero gravity rig.

  Mayor Akunle was huddled with the captain, who held up her hand to stop anyone from leaving, ignoring Konrote’s frustrated expression.

  Finally, the captain spoke. “Our first priority will be the zero gravity rig, and any inspection and repairs necessary.”

  “But that’s not our only concern,” added the mayor, taking the captain’s queue. “Only the most urgent. I’m sure we’ve all seen the theorizing and hypothesizing on the net discussions; these two latest pieces of news will only increase the tension and confusion of the personnel onboard. As soon as possible, the entire complement, aside from vital watch stations, will assemble in the Arena, and we will answer questions for as long as we can. It’s absolutely critical that we retain the full confidence of every Aotean —for this mission, and for the continuing safe operation of this ship.”

  Holy shit! thought Konami, as the meeting was adjourned. He supposed the Arena could hold every soul onboard Aotea, but it would be a tight squeeze. He always had wondered why it was so large — he’d never heard of a sporting event that was even half full — but this must be the answer. An old Earth idiom came to him, for some reason — something about eggs and a basket. He put that thought aside as he left.

  CHAPTER 24

  The forward Can was starting to resemble an enormous spider’s web. Mattoso shuddered as she recalled the childish fright she felt when, exploring a little used storage alcove in Ceres City, she stumbled into a nest of cobwebs. Spiders were one of the few Earth creatures that had, somehow, found themselves a niche in the tunnels of Ceres.

  She yawned — she had been awake for a while, just completing verification of the rig at the Beach. Slow as hell, but at least it was boring… she thought, recalling the draining of the Beach’s artificial lake. And stinky, too… She grimaced at the memory of the smell at the bottom of the lake, mildew and scum and miscellaneous organic residue.

  “All clear,” shouted a crewman, and a dull thudding “pop” sounded. Enormous reels of cables and webbing had been unrolled and were being propelled across the Can’s empty diameter, crisscrossed and enmeshed such that, even should one find themselves floating in that empty space in the center of the can, there would always be a cable or webbing nearby to haul oneself back to the surface.

  She idly scanned the news and discussion forums as she walked. Don’t believe it! was the title of one thread, in which anonymous users argued about the truthfulness of the latest news regarding the faked signals. One poster believed the latest reports, but claimed that the signals were just a ruse by SNH operatives to manipulate Aoteans. Other threads contained polar opposite opinions, with posters demanding that such theorizing was contrary to the principles of the SNH, and that the conspiracists were continuing the pattern of strife and chaos from Earth.

  Even though the vast majority of the forum discussions were still courteous and agreeable, she had the feeling something was changing. It used to be a challenge to find an argument onboard, even in the relative anonymity of the network discussions. Now they were getting the most attention, even if much of that attention were exhortations for calm.

  She’d never had any doubt that her decision to join the crew of Aotea was the right one. Her parents had been inconsolable when she first informed them, more than a decade before. All her childhood they had told her she would stay on Ceres and work in the family restaurant; two of her brothers, more than a decade older, had become Ceres City cops, and her other brother Paolo was a bit slow, leaving Mattoso as the presumed heir to the family business. But once they learned of her plans, they walked back all their expectations, begging that she find another career on Ceres if she wished, or even (to Mattoso’s amazement) go elsewhere in the solar system, where at least they might see her occasionally. But to leave for Samwise might as well have been a death sentence — albeit one with occasional, multi-year-delayed message vids.

  She had been shocked at first. Her parents were die-hard believers in Paola Rahmon, even if they were never formally members of the SNH. Mattoso had thought they’d be ecstatic once they realized her plans. But her family’s vids had become less and less
frequent over the last year, except for Paolo, who recorded a short message every week for her, whether or not she responded. Thoughts of his bouncing leap for an embrace every time she visited made her tear up, and she tried to bring her mind back to the present.

  Mattoso looked on as, hand in hand, a line of children made its way aft between structures and riggers. Furry, simian MOMbots gently herded the children, distracting the most confused and bewildered among them with juggling tricks as they walked. When she first arrived onboard from Ceres, she found the MOMbots on Aotea awkward and even disturbing. With their multiple-jointed limbs, they moved far more like animals than robots, though not like any animal she had ever seen in the Earth documentary vids. But the years onboard, along with the gushing reports of her fellow Aoteans on the unending tolerance, affection, and playfulness of the robots, had softened her opinion. The orderliness of the relocation of the children, along with the dutiful, step-by-step compartment zero-gravity rig, contrasted sharply with the bickering and divisions on the net.

  She looked again at the checklist projected into the air — Mattoso had been assigned to verify that a section of machinery spaces had been properly rigged for zero gravity. As she made her way down an access hatch she noticed more DustBots, TrashBots, and their ilk, than usual — the Can-wide rig demanded, temporarily, that every cleaning robot focus on uncontained liquids and small debris. One of the bug-like little machines was filling its expandable bladder with what looked like spilled coffee on the deck. Another swept trash and debris into little piles for some larger Bot to collect later.

  The checklist guided her through the passageways and compartments, verifying that every hatch large enough for a guycable was rigged open, every tool was secured, every surface had handholds attached, and every large space was crisscrossed with webbing. Even the Bots rigged themselves from some silent electronic command — it was startling to see how many additional limbs the TrashBots, TaskBots, RoverBots, and others seemed to conjure up from their innards to crawl and climb along in freefall.