A Larger Universe

by James L Gillaspy

  He smiled sadly and shook his head. "And, Tommy, no one goes home. This is your home now. Anything you can do to make the ship better will help you."

  Tommy's expression was stubborn. "That's not decided, yet."

  Valin put his hand on Tommy's shoulder. "Your hope does you no good. This ship won't return to Earth for many years. When it does return, you won't be allowed to go home. If the lords give you some task that sends you to Earth, you'll be forced to come back to the ship. That's the way it is; that's the way it's always been."

  Tommy shrugged off Valin's hand. "That may be the way it's always been. We'll see about how it will be."

  "You're just a boy, even if you're bigger than one of our men," Valin said. "What can a boy do to influence the lords' actions?"

  "If Earth's computers are used to fix everything, maybe someone will decide this ship should return to Earth for more, then we'll see what happens. Maybe they'll reward me by letting me go," Tommy said.

  "The lords will reward you by giving you more work to do, not by releasing you. You apparently enjoy the work you're doing. Let that be enough. There's only one release from this ship for us--death."

  Tommy didn't answer for a while. He slumped in his chair and stared at the floor. I have to find a way to make the lords listen to me, he thought, but how? I don't know enough about what's going on. I don't even know where in the Universe I am. I've never even met a lord.

  One of his dad's favorite sayings was a man always needs leverage. The only leverage I have is the computers I'm installing. Somehow, that must do. And I don't have much choice about the man part, either. I've been thrown into each job as if I'm already an adult. I must be one, as best I can, until I can get home.

  Finally, he raised his head. "I need to go. It's time for the evening meal, and then I have to get ready for our first day in Tillie's farm."

  "You seem to have reached a decision," Valin said. "I hope the right one. There's a single reality here, and you won't be able to change it. In the meantime, I'll try to get you more assistants. One last thing. Don't stop on other levels on your way to Tillie's farm. The decks above the Commons are reserved for lords and warriors and those the lords have invited."

  Valin followed Tommy out. "I must eat also. May I join you?"

  After his meal, Tommy found Vent and Sanos in the computer warehouse, selecting the equipment they would take the next morning. When they were done, he went through the stack of boxes and nodded at the two of them. "Looks like you've got everything. I need to add a few things we didn’t use before, though, and I'll be adding the same things to the computer we already installed, along with making some changes to the code. Get started moving these boxes next to the elevators. We'll meet there after the morning meal."

  In his original examination of the inventory, Tommy had found twenty huge rolls of network cable, and enough routers, switches and wireless equipment to network a large company. Maybe that would be enough to wire together all the computers in a starship if the electricians have access to the entire central column. The central column would make a really long lever.

  "What are you laughing at?" Sanos asked.

  "Nothing," Tommy replied, "Nothing that matters. Not for now anyway." But maybe I can make it matter, he thought.

  Sanos and Vent

  While Sanos and Vent loaded boxes onto the two-tiered wheeled table they used for transport, Tommy arranged for the electricians to pull computer cable to Tillie's Deck. Tommy's call on the intercom wasn't going well until Tommy used Lord Ull's name.

  "Can he get away with that?" whispered Vent.

  "Only if it's true. Isn't it?" Sanos whispered back.

  Vent shrugged his shoulders and whispered, "Maybe. Maybe not. I heard something you should know. I'll tell you after we leave."

  Tommy went to the corner of the warehouse where he had set up his exercise area. He was soon straining against weights attached to ropes and pulleys.

  After they finished moving boxes, Sanos and Vent left to get some rest for the next day. Since becoming Tommy's assistants, they had moved into a barracks close to where Tommy lived alone.

  "He has to be the strangest person I know," Sanos said, "and I don't just mean the way he looks. Only a crazy person would sweat when he doesn't have to."

  "He's strange," Vent replied, "and he's definitely reckless. I was in the translation room library, and I overheard him talking with Valin about the job we just did. Tommy didn't have Lord Ull's approval."

  "So we're in trouble," Sanos said.

  "Valin doesn't think so. At least, it didn't sound like he thinks so." Vent stopped walking. "Sanos, there's more. This ship is falling apart."

  Sanos looked around. "The ship is the same as it's always been. Maybe a little bit dirtier. Why do you say that?"

  "Because Lord Ull says it is. That's what Valin said. Lord Ull is afraid something critical will fail that we can't repair."

  "What has that go to do with Tommy and us?" Sanos asked. "What can we do about it, even if it's true?"

  "That hydroponics computer is just one of many computers that need repairing," Vent said. "Tommy just proved he can get something working again, and we helped. That's what it has to do with us.

  "Valin said something else. Some of the lords would stop what we're doing if they understood what was happening."

  "They'll know, eventually," Sanos said. "Aren't you worried?"

  "Some. But not for the reason you might think," Vent said. "If Lord Ull is right about the ship, I worry Tommy's craziness will draw the lords' attention too soon, before they understand the value of what he's doing. I worry they'll make him stop before we know enough to continue his work."

  They walked for some time in silence. "There's no controlling him, though," Sanos said.

  "No, all we can do is learn what we can until then," Vent agreed.

  "If we don't get killed ourselves, first," Sanos replied.

  Chapter Seven: Assignments

  "Are you sure we have everything?" Sanos asked Vent as Tommy arrived at the bank of elevators.

  "We checked each box as we put it on the cart," Vent replied. "Will you calm down. We'll survive this."

  "You'll survive what?" Tommy asked.

  Sanos gave a high pitched shriek and turned toward Tommy. "It's you! I wish you wouldn't sneak up like that!"

  Vent looked at Sanos and shook his head. "Do you know where we're going?" he asked Tommy.

  "Valin gave me deck number 257," Tommy responded. "Has either of you been above the commons?"

  They looked at each other, and both replied simultaneously, "I haven't."

  "Apprentices aren't allowed in lords' territory," Sanos said. His face turned white. "I hadn't considered that. Only journeymen and masters are allowed above the Commons."

  Vent shook his head with bemusement. "Are we even apprentices? I'm not sure what we are since we're working for you."

  Tommy frowned. "Do you want to back out? I suppose I could do this alone."

  His two helpers looked at each other again, and then Vent pushed the button that would bring an elevator. When it came, Sanos shoved in the cart of equipment.

  They rose with a whine and an occasional jerk. The computers on this ship aren't the only thing that needs replacing, Tommy thought. He turned his back to the door and began checking the boxes against the list he had given his helpers. When the elevator lurched to a halt, he turned to check the deck number. The sight of two huge men sent him stumbling back against the cart.

  As they entered, the men ducked to get through the elevator door. Muscular arms hung like slabs from wide shoulders. Identical green tunics falling from clavicle to upper calf, covered broad chests and narrow waists cinched by thick belts. Tommy's eyes were drawn to the heavy sticks and flapped pouches attached to the belts, then to the roughly shaven faces above the massive necks--necks circled by an inch-wide, close-fitting metal band. Sandals and green wristbands completed what must be a uniform. Are they police, Tommy wondered
? They look like professional wrestlers on television. He had gotten used to being the biggest person in the group. No chance of that with these two nearby. They towered over him. He took a deep breath and stood up from where he had fallen back against the boxes. If they wanted to snap him in two, he couldn't do anything to prevent them. Maybe if I say something, my knees will stop shaking. "I'll bet those nicks on your faces really hurt. Forset, the priest, has some razors from Earth you should try."

  Neither man responded as they turned toward the elevator door. They continued to ignore Tommy and exited when the elevator again lurched to a stop a few decks later. Except for the faint stink of stale sweat mixed with the odor of leather and a tension that seemed to hang in the air, they might never have existed.

  "Were those warriors?" Tommy asked, rubbing the crease in his back from the box he had fallen against. "Will I be seeing more of them?"

  He turned to see his assistants pressed between the boxes and the side walls. "From your reaction, I take it you don't know, either."

  # # #

  The one difficulty with installing the computer in Tillie's dead hydroponics section proved to be pulling the network connection up the central column over fifty decks plus the height of the Commons. After building the computer in the hydroponics control room, Tommy had informed Tillie they couldn't continue until the wires linking the computers were installed. The electricians hadn't questioned Tommy's request, but they admitted that they’d never installed a cable over that height. The main electrical and communication conduits were as old as the ship. No living artisan had installed a wire of even half that length.

  Each time Tommy and his team were in Tillie's section, Tillie stood in the entrance to the next compartment, as if guarding it. When Tommy informed him of the delay before they could connect to the sensors and begin testing, he fumed.

  "I was unhappy to discover," Tillie said in the lords' language, "that a farm below the Commons was repaired first--not that I want my farm to be the subject of experiment--but I find it, well, almost obscene that the two farms will be touching, even indirectly and over that distance. Must you do this?"

  Tommy made an effort to remain expressionless while he searched for a suitable answer. He finally replied, also in the lords' language. "I would not, sir, if I had another way. We reserved the best computers for the lords' part of the ship, and the device we installed below is of inferior quality, as you might expect. Unless the subordinate computer is frequently reminded of its duty, it will fail. Your computer will be supervising that computer and all of the hydroponics computers below the Commons."

  Tillie sniffed and tilted his head backward so that he was peering down his nose at Tommy. "I see. Yes. Perfectly understandable, and as it should be. The electricians can be made to work faster. I will see to it."

  "You never told us Tillie's computer would be supervising Moder's. How does that work?" Vent asked during the trip down in the elevator.

  "I was hoping you two would keep quiet. Thanks. I couldn't think of another way to get him to accept the connection. Actually, it won't be supervising. The two computers, and all the other computers eventually, will be cooperating and helping each other perform their tasks. I want to connect every computer on the ship, and, when this cable is installed, we'll get the first benefit. I'll show you how to transfer the programs I wrote for the lower deck farm to the upper deck computer over this first segment of what will be a network." He smiled at them. "Untouched by human hands."

  In spite of Tillie's protestations, Tommy found little difference between Tillie's hydroponics farm and the one below the Commons. A few of the tables were arranged differently, but the lights, pumps, fans, and other process control devices were much the same. The entire section was connected and ready for fresh water and nutrients by the end of the fourth day. A week later, Tommy noticed a stubble of green on the starter mats, and the smell of living plants replaced the dead odor of dust and mold.

  Tommy wanted to declare success and go on to another dead farm section. Instead he had to deal with Tillie's refusal to read instructions, whether on paper or on a computer screen, in anything except the lords' language. He spent the next week translating the menus, dialog boxes, help files, and message strings into an acceptable format and testing the programs again. Since the system was live, he had visions of a program error causing one of the tanks to flush, but the worst that happened during the testing was a stopped fan. He had that fixed before anyone else noticed the air in that part of the section wasn't moving.

  The next trouble with Tillie came after Tommy gave him and his staff a presentation about their new "device."

  Tommy had found several pallets of large plasma and LCD displays in the inventory. The day before the class, he temporarily set up one of the 50-inch displays in front of chairs for the thirty-seven artisans in the section. Before leaving, he booted the system with a screen saver he liked--a series of pictures of snow-covered woods in Vermont. When Tommy arrived for the class, the artisans were standing in front of the display, nervously touching the screen, and looking for the window behind by tipping its base out from the wall. He tried to calm them by explaining that this was just another technology from Earth, but that seemed to make them even more agitated.

  Tillie seemed affected most of all. He interrupted Tommy several times through the presentation, expressing his unhappiness with what he saw on the monitor. The top half of the new monitor screen duplicated the pattern of lights from the original control device. The lower part of the screen instructed the operator in what key to press to simulate the switches on the system, and asked for and received responses. To Tommy, the display looked like a flashing fruit salad, but Moder wanted it that way. Tillie wanted the old lights and switches to be part of the new system.

  At the end of the class, Tillie waited until all of his subordinates had left the room, and blocked the door. "You and your staff must stay. One can be here one-third of each day to operate this thing."

  At first Tommy didn't know how to respond. Finally, he said, politely in the lords' language, "Master Tillie, Lord Ull assigned me the task of fixing the dead section devices. Until I have completed the tasks she has given me, I am, unfortunately, not available for anything else, nor is my staff. You must understand I have no choice. My assistants and I will always be available to help you through any problem, but we cannot always be here."

  Tillie pursed his lips as if he had bitten off something sour. "Even Lord Ull cannot expect us to..." He paused. "You are certain you will return if this does not work for us?"

  "Of course we will," Tommy said. "Your success is even more important to me than it is to you. If the computer fails, one of your farm sections will die again, and you will be no worse off than before. I, however, will be subject to Lord Ull's wrath for my failure."

  Tillie gave Tommy a shrewd glance. "You are right, of course. We will attempt to follow your instructions, but expect me to call you when I need you."

  When they had packed the plasma display and were safely in the elevator, Vent said, "I have two questions."

  "Yes?"

  "The first is, I thought you'd never met Lord Ull?"

  "I never have. But Tillie wasn't going to give up on just my say so, was he?"

  "I suppose not."

  "And your second question?"

  "Since you translated all the screens to the lords' language, now we have two versions of the hydroponics program. What are we going to do about that?"

  "We're going to replace the program in Moder's computer with the version in Tillie's computer as soon as we get the chance."

  "But Moder and his staff are used to the English version. They won't like having to change now."

  "I didn't replace the text and screens; I set up alternative text and screens. To switch back and forth between English and the lords' language, just press the 'F12' key."

  "Is it true you are just sixteen years old?" Sanos interjected into the conversation.

  Tommy be
came pensive. "That sounds about right, but how would I tell in this place?” Tommy quickly changed the subject. “But that has nothing to do with this. A good programmer never wants to maintain two versions of the same program. It was a no-brainer to merge both versions."

  "A no brainer?" Sanos asked.

  "I'll explain later," Tommy said as the elevator door opened. "Are you ready to fix the rest of the hydroponics farms? Providing we can do that and answer trouble calls from Tillie. We'll be getting a lot of those, I think."

  # # #

  With the success of the first two installations, and the promise of doing something new, Valin had no problem providing Tommy with more assistants. As Valin explained it, all of the work groups among the artisans--and the farmers--were hierarchical guilds, for the most part organized by age, from oldest to youngest: guildmaster, senior master, master, journeyman, and apprentice, following the social pattern of the time their village had been taken. The computers were something new, and the masters wanted no part of them. The masters had too much vested in a lifetime of advancement. A few of the journeymen were intrigued but cautious of losing their seniority. But for the apprentices, who had talked with Sanos and Vent, the computers were a release from the years of menial toil required before they would be allowed meaningful work. If Tommy accepted all who volunteered, he would have spent his time teaching, not installing new computers. Instead, he picked six, with Valin's approval, and, finding it difficult to meet their disappointed gazes, told the crestfallen remainder that they might be chosen later.

  Tommy split the group into three teams of three, with Sanos and Vent as the other two leaders. He checked the hardware, but otherwise held each team responsible for one of the three dead hydroponics farms. As before, Tommy had the electricians pull cable between the decks to connect the computers, and then he installed some extra equipment himself before declaring the tasks done. Even with all that necessary work, and with training the new people, all the farms had new growth by the end of the fourth week.