by J J Perry
“Jeg er træt men jeg har det godt, tak.” I’m tired but well, thanks.
“Må jeg få dig noget?” May I get you something?
“Kaffe.”
“Det kan jeg ikke få.” I can’t get you that. Spoon scooted over to Lucinda and lifted a cloth napkin with his metallic mechanical arm and placed it on her lap. He dropped the guttural Jutland dialect and reverted to an American metrosexual accent. “What flavor would you prefer in your drink, ma’am?”
“Vanilla bean, if you please.” A groggy smile crept across Maricia’s face. The cook could be pleasant and subtly funny at times.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Savanna stood then sat down. “I’m supposed to give a little speech, but I think I’ll do it from a chair.”
“Informal is good,” said Lucinda. “The idiots that wrote the instructions were never in space this long.”
“Over seven months ago, we flipped the switch on the ion propulsion engine and started this ride,” Savanna began. “I don’t need to tell you it hasn’t been all fun. I am proud of how you guys have held it together. On the new drugs, we will gradually become less alert and mentally functional. The protocol requires that we have a session today to talk. First off, I’d like to thank Raul for reprogramming Spoon’s speech algorithm.”
“It was either that or deactivate him. I didn’t want to cook and wash dishes. And, to be completely honest, Ivanna reprogrammed him. I still don’t know how.”
“Well, then, thank you, Ivanna. That explains the Danish.”
“You are most welcome.” The two beautiful med-bots in their bright, tight uniforms were at the side of the room, ready to assist if needed.
“Kudos to Maricia and Lucinda. We have twenty frozen advanced blastospheres. As a reminder, Maricia, you must not get pregnant before nap time. Lucinda and I won’t either, due tolack of opportunity. We need three fertile uteri on the other end of the trip.”
“Aye, aye, mon capitan,” replied Raul.
“As of today, Bitelzebub has taken over completely,” Savanna continued. “For any of us to do anything requires an executive override. We are now on autopilot for the next five thousand years, give or take a century or two.”
“All three of us girls should wake up pregnant,” Lucinda said. “The bots thaw and implant the blastos just as we are coming out of hibernation.”
“If we were pregnant at the beginning,” Maricia said, “the kids, if they could be born as we slept, would age as much as we will, somewhere around twenty years I think, but when aroused from hibernation would still be infants in knowledge.”
“Too bad. It’s unfair that I should be trapped on a ship with three pregnant women and no other men.”
“That would be heaven for some guys,” Savanna responded.
“Lola and Ivanna won’t be pregnant.” Maricia smiled at his feigned angst.
“They are not men.”
“We could cut hair and reprogram their voices to male,” she responded.
“They would still have boobs.”
“OK. It won’t work. You can shoot pool with Jekyll and Zhivago,” Maricia offered as she stifled a yawn.
“We have not resolved the Tuphalonatide issue,” Lucinda said, changing subjects.
“I think we have,” responded Maricia. “Raul and I are taking the original formulation.”
“The data are better with the modification,” Lucinda stated.
“The data appear to be better,” Maricia corrected. “Raul is not comfortable with the lack of actual data. We decided to take the original.”
“What do you think, Savanna?” Lucinda and everyone turned to her.
“At this point, I don’t care.”
“You don’t care?” Lucinda asked.
“I meant that the issue is unsettled enough that I don’t feel I can force people to do something they don’t want. I am taking the modified Tuphalonatide. Everyone has chosen a course. Issue settled.”
“I don’t like it,” Lucinda said.
“It is the easiest solution and democratic.”
“But the data are compelling and—”
“You are looking at probability estimates,” Raul interrupted. “One year ago, what was the probability that half of us would now be dead? Close to zero. Obviously, we do what we can to improve our chances, but when it comes right down to it, it is fate.”
“This food tastes pretty good, considering what is in it,” Maricia said sleepily. “I expected worse.”
“I take that as a compliment,” said Spoon.
“I would rather have everyone take the same regimen,” Lucinda continued.
“It’s fat and protein and tastes like a malt,” Maricia said as she chewed and savored like a connoisseur.
“Lucinda,” Savanna answered, “the only one bothered about this little decision is you. Please let it go.”
“But that’s so off topic.” Maricia looked around at her mates in confusion. “What’s that, Savanna?”
“It is your mind wandering.”
“Our thoughts will drift more and more,” Lucinda said. “We will probably need to nap. Judgment will be impaired. We will depend on the bots more and more for the next three weeks. It is not precise about when each of us will start to hibernate, as you know. It’s a funny feeling for me. I hate to lose control.”
“Roger that,” Raul added.
“Being in control is an illusion,” Savanna said. “Entropy and inertia rule the universe. We feel in command as long as something or someone has not deflected our path. People and things affect us randomly. I remember leaving a restaurant with Cyrus after several years together. A man was walking in and passed us. Our eyes met for a few vivid, fervent, consuming seconds, but in that moment, my life changed. A thought came into my consciousness and never left.”
“What was the thought?” Raul’s wry smile divulged his amusement at another philosophical diversion.
“It was as much a feeling as it was an idea. Love is outside of space and time, not limited by convention, no Aristophanes soul mate split apart. It can happen in an instant or grow over decades for more than just one object of affection. One glance deep into the eyes of just the right person can haunt all the rest of your life.”
“All that in three seconds?” Raul asked.
“All that and more.”
“So, Savanna,” asked Maricia playfully, “did you love more than one man at a time?”
“Not physically, not like a threesome or that. I’m a good girl.”
“How did we get here from talking about being in control?” asked Lucinda.
“Tuphalonatide,” said Maricia.
“Eight years ago, I finished medical training,” Lucinda said. “To reward myself, I spent two months around Patagonia. I felt so free and, at the same time, so disciplined when I was on the rock. When you climb, you use rope and protection. You examine and plan the route. You look at the weather. You bring some gear you might need just to be prepared. One afternoon as I was leading and exposed on a sheer face, a storm blew in. The gusts were strong, the rain cold and fierce. I fell twice in twenty minutes. I did everything possible to stay on the rock, but weather took the reins away from me. We are subject to the whims of unpredictable events. So, control, yeah, it’s kinda relative.”
“You’re addicted to work, Luc, but not freakish about being in charge,” Maricia observed.
“And you seem happy most of the time, despite, uh…” Raul’s voice faded as he tried to retract and restate.
“A little cynical but not bitter,” Lucinda responded, patting him on the back of his hand that rested on the table, holding a cup of steaming liquid.
“For which we are all grateful,” Maricia yawned.
The disjointed conversation was one of many over the next week or so.
8.4
&n
bsp; LAUNCH + 231
Quiet dominated the ship. The speed was seven-tenths the speed of light. Lighting was dim throughout. When the elevator door opened on CAC, Lucinda walked slowly out, looking a little confused as she shuffled to the pilot’s station. Lola accompanied her.
“How are you doing?” she asked Savanna, who was seated at the console.
“It is hard to focus. I’m just trying to confirm our course corrections since we diverted a few weeks ago. I guess we’re OK.”
“I’m sure we are, Sav.”
“How are Raul and Maricia?”
“They are officially in hibernation. Their body temperatures are twenty-four degrees and slowly falling.”
“It’s funny they both went under on the same day,” Savanna mused.
“They are taking the unmodified drug. I think we’ll both go under sometime in the next few days. They were pretty sleepy and confused. We seem to be doing better.”
“We got traffic from Control today, a real short message badly broken up but repeated over and over. I think I have it figured out. Take a look.”
Lucinda read and repeated the message several times.
ALERT
FOUR MISSION FAILURES HAVE BEEN CONFIRMED. FIVE ADDITIONAL MISSION FAILURES ARE SUSPECTED. SEVEN OF THESE NINE APPEAR TO BE RELATED TO PSYCHIATRIC INSTABILITY OF CREW MEMBERS. THERE ARE NO INDICATIONS OF FAILURE OF THE REMAINING MISSIONS. BE ADVISED TO TAKE STRONG PRECAUTIONS. RECOMMEND LOCKING ALL PERSONNEL OUT OF VITAL SYSTEM CONTROLS.
“This comes a little late,” Lucinda said.
“It’s pretty depressing. Nine missions mean fifty-four people gone.”
“And the chance for a success falls by 36 percent. Have you checked our system for sabotage?”
“I directed that a program to run. I hope. Did I say that right? Maybe I told Bitelzebub to wax the floor on five.”
“It needs it.” Lucinda looked at the screen. “The timer says seven minutes. Is that when your program completes?”
“I hope so.” There was a sleepy pause. “So, Luc, tell me, in six minutes or less, about how it went with the hibernation process.”
“The med-bots assess vitals remotely by the locator data and can tell when body temp and cardiac output drops. Their sensors allow them to make an assessment of the EEG.” Raul started to go out first, and Ivanna guided him to Medical. She got him undressed, gave him a small injection, and helped him into the capsule, where he fell asleep within a minute. Maricia went with and watched the whole thing until her signs fell below parameters. The process was repeated. The capsule cools fairly quickly initially. It went without a hitch.”
“Are you nervous?”
“I’ve been nervous for months. Seeing this made me want to cry. I keep choking it down.”
“It’s OK to cry, Luc.”
“You first.” Lucinda had a tear floating down her cheek as she spoke. Savanna matched her.
“I think it’s a tie.” They hugged each other in silence for a long minute.
They found no words until the computer screen flashed an indicator that the program was finished. Tapping an icon on the screen, they both read through the message.
“Shid!” Lucinda slurred. “There has some tampering.”
“Not all the capsules have the same programming, Luc. Can you fix it?”
“I don’t know. I’m not clinking thearly.”
“This is medical, Luc. I’m lost.”
“I need sleep. Let me yelp you with the…”
Savanna saw Lucinda’s eyes were closing.
“Lucinda, please come with me,” Lola said as she approached and placed one hand around Lucinda’s upper arm, another on her forehead. Lucinda startled and opened her eyes.
“I’m sorry, I fell asleep. What were we doing?”
“The capsule programming was changed,” Savanna answered. “You need to fix it!”
“How did that happy?” Lucinda was drifting away again.
Lola pulled her to her feet. “Come with me.”
“I need to six something,” she protested as she walked away with Lola. “Fex something. Sex it.”
The elevator doors hissed shut as Savanna looked at the screen, blinking the fog away. Suresh had made the change. The genius reprogrammed the temperature algorithm of the capsules, making all but his and Lucinda’s rise over hundreds of years, an imperceptible but fatal change. The programming appeared to be authorized, thus acceptable to the hub computer.
Lucinda would be OK, and she might be able to arrange to hibernate in Parambi’s oversized sarcophagus. Raul and Maricia were going to die if she could not change it. She never knew how to program the capsules and was not going to figure it out in her current condition. She looked for an override. This proved to be unsuccessful. She attempted to open the capsule programming, but the computer had locked her out. Her pass codes would not open the software.
She opened a help manual. It was voluminous and told her to take steps that were not permitted. She tried to find a way to unlock the system unsuccessfully. For almost an hour, she tried in every way to fix the problem but was blocked in every attempt. She stood and walked to the lift. Ivanna followed.
They went to Medical. The floor plan had been reconfigured a week ago. There were eight titanium capsules in a circle. Each was over two meters long and had a smoked quartz top that permitted visualization of the person lying supine therein from mid thigh to head. She saw Lola looking into one of them. Savanna walked over and looked in. Lucinda lay naked and motionless. A dim digital display showed 32 degrees Celsius. “Shit!”
Savanna ran out and up the three flights of stairs to CAC and burst into the room. She furiously tapped on the console, wiping sleep from her eyes. She paced around CAC, trying to keep thinking through thick molasses. She could not find a way to delete the change. It finally occurred to her the only option that would work. Direct the computer system. “Ivanna,” she said, “I need to reset the temperature programming of the life support capsules in Medical. How do I do that?”
“All reprogramming by the crew is no longer allowed.”
“There has been sabotage, a temperature rise programmed in some of the capsules. This will permit aging at too fast a rate.”
“I cannot reverse an authorized change in the programming at this time.”
“The system must correct. It’s mission critical.”
Savanna heard this statement several times as she tried a different approach. She paced, tapped more, tried verbal commands, and soon wore out. She collapsed on a chair, weeping, her vision dimming in the early morning hours.
“Savanna, come with me.” Ivanna stood next to her as she whimpered. Zhivago had entered from the lift. Savanna looked at it in surprise. The SMD-702s seldom left the fourth floor.
“I can’t come with you yet. There has been arbitrage.”
“You are confused and falling asleep. You are not safe here.”
“No! We’re in danger! Shit! Shit! Shit!”
Zhivago whirred over to her. “What is the source of your frustration?”
“There has been sabotage of the capsules. The temperature setting is going to be too high.”
“I confirm that there was an authorized change in capsule programming made.”
“I need to fix that. It will kill everyone in the affected units.”
“The change was authorized and within parameters.”
“It was authorized by Commander Paria under duress. The computer will not allow me to change the programming back to the original settings. So how can I get this back to the original settings?”
“You cannot.”
“Then put me in Parambi’s pod. The temperature will not rise in it or in Fischer’s.”
“Reviewing code” was the response of Ivanna. She froze.
“Commander De Clercq,” Zhivago i
ntoned, “Malicious program detected. I terminated her code review because a subroutine has disabled the processing unit doing the review. In this case, Ivanna has caught a virus, as you might say. Isolation in progress.”
“The bastard!” Savanna tried to scream and managed only a hoarse yelp. She would have been livid if she were not so sleepy. “Can you reverse the changes made to life support symptoms?”
“Process in review.” Zhivago made long pauses between statements. “Insidious changes detected. Restart of med-bot Ivanna in progress.” Ivanna reverted to her neutral posture for a few seconds and then resumed her activity. Savanna felt sleep moving over her and wanted to lie down.
“Reversal of authorized reprogramming under way. Removal of malicious code under way.” Zhivago showed no sign of doing a thing except for a tiny flashing red light near the floor. “The changes are underway.”
“Please confirm on scream.” Savanna walked to a terminal and watched. Data appeared.
“Savanna, your temperature is falling. Come with me.” Ivanna was pulling at her arm.
“Please reassess for charges rendered by the screw in all capsule and course programming in the last two months.”
The course change appeared, as did a change in the reactor maintenance made by Raul and discussed fully before. However, she could not remember the discussion.
“What is the impact on the fission and the integument of the slip related to the ssshhhange in reactor… .?” She was now mumbling as Ivanna steadied her.
“It conserves plutonium,” Zhivago intoned within a few seconds. “There is no projected adverse impact on the ship. Discussed extensively by the crew and approved by all.”
Savanna laid her head on the shoulder of Ivanna, falling asleep as she staggered and stumbled back to the elevator. All three descended.
Later in the day, four capsules contained the crew members in deep sleep. Each had a small soft tissue–coated tube inserted through a nostril and down into the stomach as well as waste removal devices appropriately positioned. Oxygen and water vapor were scrubbed from the air outside of the capsules and a mixture of nitrogen, krypton, and helium replaced the air. There would be no oxidation.