by Chris Hechtl
“Enough. It's clearly time to take a recess. Now. Go cool your heads,” the boss said sighing.
“Honestly, we'd have to plumb a salt water tank …” One of the younger engineers said, clearly having missed the rant by the complexity of the life support problem.
“They can't live in the tank the entire time you know. They'd have to leave it. Shift change … More than one,” another engineer replied. He shrugged. “Imagine the salt water spray and what it'll do to the surrounding electronics and decking.”
The first junior engineer sucked in an understanding breath. “Crap. Oh fuck all, it'd get everywhere …no, ungood, totally ungood. The … oh hell.”
“What about an augmented brain? A clone of someone with excellent piloting skills obviously, I heard we're making great strides there. A dolphin might work, though they have an alien thought process the problems involved there … but then again, they've got that whole inner ear thing going, and they can shut half their brain off at a time, and they are used to swimming … I wonder if we can engineer the ear into a human?” he mused then snapped his fingers. “Or something purposely gene engineered from the ground up? No body …”
A junior engineer's eyes lit up. “Hey, yeah!”
“No life support. A body is the life support to the brain. It's stupid to grow a brain and not a body,” Charles said.
“True. But they don't need limbs.”
Kathy stiffened. She looked out the door angrily. The boss held up a restraining hand though. He cocked his head, apparently listening as they reasoned it through.
“Can't,” another voice said pointedly.
“Why the hell not? The life support engineering is straight forward. Granted the genetic engineering and conditioning would be tricky, but I bet someone could figure it out. Besides, we'd have a lock on the tech if it worked!”
“Because it's illegal that's why. There is a ban on it. Human, any organic can't be used as a robot. Lagroose himself agreed to never do it. You can't purposely grow tissue for something like this. It's slavery. Remember Biogen, Inc.? Or Gentek? Or Stitch Tech? The UN trans-human laws?? Mr. Lagroose signed off on most of them, at least the parts about slavery and organic computers. We're going to be in enough trouble if we get any deeper into that territory. Legal's already having hissy fits over the Uplift and AI projects.”
He winced. “Crap. Forgot that,” he said looking away. “But then, that's down there, not up here in space.”
“Exactly. So, we can do what we want, the argument is crap. They wouldn't be sentient,” an engineer said mulishly. “Think of it as an organic meat computer.”
“You want an animal flying the ship? A slave? An organic meat bot? Why would it care? What if you piss it off?” Kathy demanded.
“If we bred it … gene engineered it, controlled the pleasure and pain centers …” he said mulishly, throwing ideas out there but not realizing her intransigent was out of revulsion and horror not over the engineering of the concepts.
The boss shook his head. “Oh hell. Do you have any idea how hit and miss that is? Conditioning? And don't get me started about the ethics involved. The AI, justice department, and media would …” He scowled. “No. That comes from on high, corporate level. The top of the food chain said no.”
Levare held up a restraining hand. “Oookay, got it. Forget I even suggested it.”
“So, if we do go with a dolphin, we're talking some major changes to the hull design and life support.”
“Crimeny! A salt water enviro to deal with? Can you think of anything worse for corrosion?” The brit ship architectural assistant shook his head. “Bloody hell mate!”
“Didn't they have a Sci-Fi show on TV back in the nineties? Something about a sub with acrylic tubs throughout?” Levare asked, wrinkling his nose as he tried to remember ancient history. Trey it seemed couldn't remember either; the man shook his head no.
Charlie frowned thoughtfully. “I'll look it up. It might serve as a reference template to get the point across to those who can't understand the concept. But you're right. Structure alone is a headache …”
“Hey, we don't have to have tubes all over the ship. Just a habitat.”
“What about to the bridge?”
“Why? If they are augmented they can pilot from their quarters!” Alec reminded them. Levare blinked as he digested that idea. It was appealing in some ways, though they'd have problems with communication lag if the dolphin quarters were too far from the bridge and main engineering …
He looked off into space for a moment as he toyed with the idea over and over in his head. “True … though I hesitate to think about the salt water issue and cybernetics.”
The first junior engineer made a face. “Yeah, water and cybernetics … not a good thought.” He shook his head. “I hadn't thought of that from that angle.” He sighed.
“If we did some sort of mister and did tanks that were null G, would that work? Do they need the full water enviro I wonder? Buoyancy?”
“That's an idea …”
“Can we … I dunno …” The voice sounded glum as it pettered off as a tapping toe and throat clearing registered.
“I said recess people, not take it out in the hall,” the boss said from the conference room. “And I said no brain in the box. Don't waste your time or mine on what won't fly,” he ordered. The engineers nodded and walked off muttering.
He turned, nodding as Levare left, head down. “Kath,” the boss said, looking at the fuming woman. “They are engineers; they think of things in their tiny little mindsets of how to make it work.”
Kathy scowled, arms crossed as she looked out the virtual window. He waited, watching her wrestle with her core. He was pretty sure what was coming. “I don’t think I'm cut out for this. Their ethics … My god, did you hear them just now??” She finally said.
“Like I said, they want to figure out the puzzle, make it work, they never stop to ask if they should. Just … don’t jump ship. Not yet. Like you said, brainstorming. They are bouncing ideas around and seeing what sticks. All part of the process, as ugly as it sounds and looks.”
“Yeah well, there is too much lightening going around,” she replied dryly and waved a hand. “I'm going to get a soda and some air, want one?”
He shook his head. “No. My wife's got me on a diet,” he frowned. She smiled. “Go on, get out of here,” he mock growled. She nodded as she gathered her gear and left.
-*-*-^-*-*-
After a half hour break Trey called them to order. He reminded them they had to solve the navigational problem on a deadline and work together on it, not drive each other apart. “So, growing someone in a test tube, raising them, training them, testing, evaluation, that's out from an engineering stand point alone,” Charles said. “And a moral and ethical roadblock, we'd be eaten alive. I know upper management said make it work, but that's a no brainer. No pun intended.”
“So, we've got to make what we've got work somehow. Even if we have what? People on shift? Pairs?”
“Humans you mean? Airline pilots do it I suppose. If we used the right software filters … they'd have to do short shifts. No more than a couple hours. Four tops.”
“Which means we'd have to have what? Six pairs? Plus some spares in case someone gets sick or hurt?”
“Why would they do that?” A junior engineer asked, wrinkling his nose.
“Always plan on people messing things up, Murphy. We can’t compensate for everything,” Levare said.
“But, I mean we'd control the environment, screen for toxins and vaccinate everyone …” the engineer said.
“That doesn't factor people getting fatigued or tripping over their own feet. Trust me, if someone can find a way they'll get hurt however much they don't intend to do so. Or in some cases they might just to get the extra rack time,” Levare said.
“It's been known to happen on wet navy ships,” Charles said.
Levare nodded to him. “There speaks the voice of experience people.”
“So … we're back to the uplift question again? Chimps?”
“I don't know the whole program; most of it is classified to keep the media and bleeding hearts out of it. I think Kathy mentioned dolphins, though she shouldn't have,” the boss said, looking at her. She nodded. She dearly regretted bringing the subject up. “I have an NDA hanging over my neck, so I can't get into detail. But I can say we'll have to transport trans-humans eventually. And yes, the boss is a stickler for their having full rights. That includes crew. We'll have to figure out accommodations later.”
“Lovely.”
“I still don't see how two humans can work together on the level of concentration required to navigate and helm the ship,” Levare mused. “Not for four hours at a stretch. How do we handle turnover to another command crew?”
“Fatigue too. We'd have to find some way to monitor for that,” Charles murmured, making a note.
“Can a human handle navigating at all?”
“I think we've had some simulations. With high-end computer support, a young person can handle it for brief periods,” the boss said.
“Why young? Oh, reflexes?” Charles asked.
Kathy nodded. “But we're talking teenage reflexes. Upper cut off is mid-twenties. I'd say they'd have to be one hell of a gamer and pilot to be able to stick with it over that age.”
“Which means we're going to go through flight crews.”
“But you said dolphins are different?” the boss asked. “Cetaceans are in water, a 3-D environment already. I did note the inner ear thing, but it got me lost.”
Kathy frowned and then nodded. Trey was an admin at best, a manager. He couldn't be expected to keep up with everything. “Okay,” she put her hands up and formed a series of rights with her fingers. She examined it and then held her small hands up. “Bear with me. The body has three rings for the inner ear. Each on an axis, X, Y, and Z. That's us humans, bears, cats, birds, and what have you.”
Trey nodded.
“Water is in each; it's self-leveling.” She tipped her fingers. He nodded. “Inside the inner layer is a series of feelers, I'm not sure if they are hair or neural receptors. Google it.”
He nodded again and motioned her to move on impatiently.
“The same design is used in mechanics I suppose. Altimeters and such,” Kathy mused.
“Something like that,” Levare said. He tapped at his tablet and then looked over to the main screen. “I pulled this from the web,” he said as they all turned their attention to the graphic of tubes. “Humans have a tiny tangle, but dolphins have big loops and more fine receptors.”
“Right. The inner ear gives you a sense of orientation. Couple that with a Cetacean’s native ability to swim for miles, control parts of their brain, echo location, and native intelligence and you see where we're going with this.”
“I am. I'm just not sure if I like what I'm hearing.”
“I'm not at all sure myself to be honest,” Kathy said. “I know there are various breeds of cetaceans. The smallest might work, but they are flighty, have health issues, and aren't reliable.”
“Pass.”
“Engineering the quarters though …” a junior engineer protested.
“Before we go that far we need to make sure they can go the distance. Right, Kathy?” Trey asked.
She nodded. “I would suggest a test. A simulator to see if they can helm a ship, and if they would take an interest in such a project. We can run the same simulation past other sapients and then compare them like you said.”
“All right. Work on that, let me know if you need some shouting power if anyone gets in your way. Now, the navigation and helm are our thorniest issues, but I think you had some issues with the artificial gravity, Levare?” Trey asked.
Levare nodded. “I'm not happy about having one or two emitters on the ship or turning the ship inside out and using the emitters in the outer hull as a pull down. I don't think that is going to work at all like some had hoped,” he said carefully. “And engineering everything inside out like that is way too complicated. So, we need to figure out how to refine the math of force emitter interactions and possibly combine it with our inertial sump project,” he said nodding to a junior engineer, “which is another headache.”
“Combine two birds with one stone?” Charlie asked. Levare nodded. “Could work, or it could make a bigger mess. You realize that, right?”
Levare spread his hands. “We've got to try something,” he said. Charlie pursed his lips but nodded.
-*-*-^-*-*-
“Boss, did you make a decision on this force emitter issue?” Trey asked in a rare face-to-face meeting. Trey usually was in station 35, the research station, not Lagroose's main station which was station 33. He'd come by on the daily shuttle since his wife had a doctor's appointment with a dermatologist.
Jack frowned. He'd caught a lot of flack over that problem with the military. The US government was still going strong as a world power … not without a few hiccups along the way in the past century, but they were still there. America, Russia, and China had the most powerful military organizations and the constant upgrading of their tech and threat of nuclear annihilation kept each of them behaving properly and not snatching other people's territory.
Now the US wanted force emitters and especially inertial dampeners/sumps for their military. They were leaning heavily on two of the company's board junior board members to ram the contract home … or at least get their foot in the door. Jack hated that.
“On the plus side, they'd pay through the nose for it,” Trey said, reading his boss's mood expertly. Jack Lagroose had little interest in maintaining the centuries-long cold war. Nor did he want to upset the apple cart and start a new arms race that was even more dangerous than the current one.
“Yeah, but it'd come with strings. Strings that would strangle us. They'd write the contract so we could only sell to the military and just to the US. Pass.” Jack shook his head. He was still unsure about the miniaturization of force emitter technology. He was pretty sure it was doable sometime but not now. Even with high intensity capacitors and room temperature superconductors, he was fairly sure they would be bulky and weak at best. Also expensive. Extremely expensive. The military loved expensive toys, but congress was no longer on board with such things. Nor was his board. Which explained why most of the space stations still relied on centrifugal gravity instead of force emitters.
Trey wrinkled his nose. “You realize pissing off the Pentagon and suppliers isn't a good thing, right?”
Jack shrugged. He'd been down that road a few times before. “It's the aerospace companies using the military industrial complex as a front. They want to get their hooks into the tech so they can have their friends reverse engineer it and sell it to other companies,” Jack said, shaking his head. “Like I said, Pass. No. Besides, they don't realize that the tech isn't suited for a small craft like a fighter.”
“Well, they'd pay for the R&D to miniaturize it of course,” Trey said suggestively, “which we could then commercialize in our shuttles and small craft. We could also apply it to our stations and other projects. And the extra efficiency would do wonders for our ships,” he said, eying Jack as he spread his hands in raw appeal.
Jack eyed him for a long moment then shook his head again. “You didn't hear a word I said about the strings did you? No. Let them down easy, don't burn the bridge. Tell them it's not viable in a fighter. Not just the force emitters, but also the power plants needed to power them,” he said.
Trey cocked his head as he digested that. “True,” he said slowly. He was fairly certain someone somewhere wanted to see if they could make some sort of gravity bomb out of it. Which if it were true would mean Jack was right. Even a force field would be cool but expensive. They'd have to buy power plants for it … he opened his mouth to suggest the idea and then closed it. The boss probably already knew that and didn't care.
“And I know the navy wants to get its hooks into space. Only the infightin
g between the air force and navy over the past century has kept either from getting far beyond orbit with their space plans,” Jack said, shaking his head. There had been the occasional satellite or probe launched that had just so happened to have passed his installations. He had been amused and hadn't tried to hide much. He was fairly certain each of the probes had been horrendously expensive too. After all, little had changed with the “I'll scratch your back if you line my pocket” mentality of the contractors and flag officers on Earth. Nor did he expect it to change.
“That and all the treaties,” Trey said.
“True. But a lot of them expired. The air force would love to have a proper space fighter, not the aerospace fighters they have now or the space fighter drones.” He grimaced. “Gravity bombs … they've wanted to replace their nuclear arsenal with something better for ages. No.”
“And the navy would love to have their own warships in space. I know,” Trey said. “Boss, we've got to make some connections, build contacts and make some people happy.”
“No,” Jack said again. “Go behind my back to the board, and I'll kick your ass. You'll be groundside and walking on your toes for life,” he growled, eying Trey. Trey spread his hands apart in surrender. “I mean it. Don't leak it either. The answer is no. We're getting away from Earth. We're moving onward and outward.”
“Our main markets are on Earth,” Trey reminded him.
“For now. Only now. Once we get the starship program off and running, that will change. It's a big galaxy,” Jack said with a ghost of a smile. Trey nodded warily.
“Any word on the competition?” Jack finally asked.
Trey made a face. “The Chinese are trying but mainly through espionage of us. They are a generation or so behind our tech, I know for a fact they took a couple of our dead ends and baited traps hook line and sinker. If they fly the ship they are building now, it won't get out of the system.”