by Chris Hechtl
Kathy realized she was running late and rushed out to the design board meeting. She wished along the way she could attend virtually; the meeting she was leaving was far more important. Vital even, she thought. A lot was riding on that discussion.
-*-*-^-*-*-
“Daedalus and Icarus will be the Pioneer class. I get that,” Levare said as he nodded to Kathy as she came in, mumbled an apology over her tardiness and took a seat. “But Prometheus, Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria, Mayflower, Drake, Cousteau, Armstrong, Marco Pollo, Yuri Gagarin, Sacagawea, Leif Ericson and Magellan, they will all be different,” Levare grumbled as he read the list of ship names for the proposed Explorer-Colonist class that would be the follow-on ships. “Can't we think of something original? Fresh? New? This is a new frontier after all.”
“What like Starjammer?” Charlie quipped. “Been there done that in bad Sci-Fi. Pass. Sometimes bringing back the old names to honor them isn't such a bad thing,” he said. He was a bit bewildered by the sheer number of ships Lagroose planned to build. He had to admit, Jack wasn't afraid to think big. If even one ship found an Earth-like planet, it would pay not only for the fleet but for another fleet of ships. Billions of people would pay through the nose to be transported.
“Okay, granted, that is a consideration. But other names should be considered. Names from other cultures for one,” Levare said, shaking his head. “Famous scientists like Galileo, Newton … Michio Kaku, Bakersfield, Tschu, Zen, Einstein …”
“Who said we won't get around to using those names? Or one of the other companies?” Trey asked absently as he read the news blog on his tablet. “All the names you can think of and more are just waiting in the wings,” he said as his finger scrolled through the rather boring report. He didn't bother to click the link to listen to the video presentation. He liked reading his news sometimes; it helped him to mentally digest it better.
“That's still wrong. I mean, of course not Starjammer or Star Pioneer or something silly, but …” Levare frowned stubbornly. He didn't like that they'd named the first two ships the Pioneer class.
“Not really our choice, the decision came from on high.” Trey said, finishing with his scan. He set the tablet aside and knitted his fingers together.
“On high? How high is high?” Levare demanded. He'd been interested in naming the ships. He'd come up with a short list.
“As high as it goes. Olympus. Or in this case the boss’s boss. Mister Lagroose himself. The guy who owns it all and pays our paychecks,” Charlie said mildly.
Levare deflated visibly. “Oh, ah. Still sucks though. It should be named after someone who created it.”
“They'll get their chance. Mister Lagroose himself isn't interested. Put the names in the file; we'll see what the future brings. If we build a lot of ships …” Trey shrugged. “Ships, star systems, planets …” Charlie pursed his lips in a silent whistle as he caught on. Trey nodded slowly. He was starting to realize the implications of the program. Not only were they going to build ships, but those ships would be a bridge to the rest of the galaxy. Granted, there were probably other life forms out there, possibly even other civilizations, but that was a lot of real estate. And Lagroose would be in the lead to snap up a lot of it for future use. Entire star systems …. the mind boggled at that thought.
“Why …” Levare shook his head in confusion.
“Because this is to inspire people … and offer a potential relief valve. For not only the population but mentally as well,” Charlie explained patiently.
“Right. I get that part, I mean, just thinking about it has me insane, just gooey. The kid in me is so excited …” he shook his head. “So, two ships? The ships are too small to move a colony …”
“That's why they are explorer ships. The first series of ships out there on the frontier will be explorers, blazing the trail,” Trey said, reminding them of the corporation's strategic plan.
“Ah. But two?” Levare asked.
Trey smiled to Charlie who snorted. “Why make one when you can make two? Or three? Or more? Redundancy. The boss is a big believer in it. We'll test them of course. If they work we'll send them in different directions or double them up in one area for mutual support.” He shrugged. “Again, not my call.”
“Ah.” Levare nodded. Charlie was another big believer in redundancy. Every ship system had to have a backup. Some had to have backups to backups and even had to have self-repair abilities or means to route around damaged or balky equipment in an emergency. Levare and the junior engineers had been frustrated with such limits; after all, they weren't building a warship! But Trey had backed the senior ship's architect up.
They'd also had to contend with bulky science equipment to monitor the hyperdrive and ship's systems. As if the ship's AI couldn't do that! Or the flight recorder … Levare cut the mental grousing off.
“Once the first two let us know they survived, we'll take what we've learned from them and then plug that into the next generation of ships,” Charlie said. “We'll learn all sorts of things like what works and what doesn't.”
“I thought they were making them already? The colony ships I mean?” Levare asked, wrinkling his nose. He could have sworn he'd read a report on block modules being constructed. He glanced to the left as Jamey entered the room. The younger man nodded to each of them as he took his seat.
Trey shook his head. “No, the first explorers will also carry terraformers. Second gen explorers will follow-up with their own terraforming kits. We've found two possible Earth-like worlds, and there is a risk that they are already occupied,” he said that with a deadpan but it raised a surprised eyebrow and whistle from Jamey. “So, we've got to make our own worlds. So, we're taking everything we've learned on Mars, Venus, Titan, and the other places we've been terraforming here in Sol system, and we're going to apply it with automated systems on those potential worlds. But we're going to do it at an accelerated rate.”
“I see. I missed that part,” Jamey admitted.
“What, wunderkind missed something right under his nose?” Levare teased, turning to the younger man. Levare had been brutal to Jamey on their first couple of meetings years ago, treating him like some intrusive kid. Jamey had managed to hold his own in debates and hadn't developed a chip on his shoulder. Of course Charlie taking him on under his wing had helped put the occasional ribbing and hazing into perspective. He looked at the older man and got a wink of support for holding his temper in check.
“I've been preoccupied with the drive refinement. And someone put in changes to the force emitter designs, and something about combining the inertial sump with internal grav. That's a major headache and a half,” Jamey said with some dignity, rolling his eyes.
“Well, the good news is I doubt they'll use your toys initially, too expensive,” Charlie said, shaking his head. Each of the force emitters cost a cool million despite everything they'd done to put them into mass production to get the price down. Quality control was still a major problem. Less than half of the emitters worked as advertised, and many didn't last the five-year planned life time. Some went up in a mess. Jamey had been after QC to run a couple of his latest gen emitters through full powered up tests, but so far the bean counters had refused over the costs.
“Not until the costs come down,” the boss agreed with a curt nod.
“It's a work in progress,” Jamey muttered. “I'm sure I can refine the edge fields and interaction models if I had some more computer support ….”
“Everyone wants the big main frames. Lagroose has Athena working on other stuff right now anyway, so you'll have to wait your turn like the rest of us,” Charlie said sympathetically. Jamey nodded glumly. Lagroose had dozens of projects besides their own, plus the day-to-day running of the company to consider.
“You'd think they'd give us our own dedicated support,” Levare grumbled.
“They did. It's not enough,” Jamey said, looking up. “Nor is the one for the physics lab, if I can ever schedule time on it. Which I can, but not
long enough for what I need to do. Besides, it's only good for running calculations. The project net …” He shook his head in annoyance. “It's being used for a couple other projects. Even the off cycle distributed cycles are booked months in advance.” He meant the shadow super computer net made out of user equipment and desktops throughout the company. Early on, the company used the computer's processors during their normal downtime to run one distributed project or another. It was slower than using a dedicated mainframe but almost as effective. He had two projects in the schedule already. One was related to the various sub-bands of each band of hyperspace, the other was or would be, if it was ever done …, he thought in annoyance, a refinement on sensor resolution. He knew Niederman had his own projects, including a wild idea about hyperbridges and wormholes. Niederman should have stuck to force emitters, Jamey mused. Pie in the sky shortcuts weren't going to work. And even if they did figure out if they existed or not, so what? You had to find them first! And then what? What if the end point was straight into a black hole? Or a magnetar? His nostrils dilated in annoyance.
Trey frowned but didn't say anything. Technically allocating additional computer net resources fell under his domain. Scheduling them from outside their own resources should go through him, especially with security considerations that needed to be taken into account. But so long as Jamey kept the borrowed resources in the family and didn't farm it out to university, private, or public nets he wouldn't quibble over how he got what needed to be done, done.
“Yeah, but we don't go anywhere if the drive doesn't work,” Levare said. Jamey nodded.
“They are working on refining the nav package, plus running a full up sim of the ship's operating system and throwing sims at it to see what breaks down. I know it's on an accelerated time line but …”
“How long now?”
“This version's been on the clock for a month our time, which is six months virtual.”
“Only six?”
“We can't accelerate it any further; the demand for the nav hits the processors hard. Six is actually pushing it,” Jamey explained.
“If we tried to do it properly it'd be a one to one representation. Which would take forever,” Levare grumbled.
“True,” Charlie agreed with a gruff nod. “We're running this one virtual year just like the other versions, then we'll compare them. Or the software eggheads will.”
“Debug. Great. Glad it's not my problem,” Levare said, shaking his head. He shot a look at their boss who just pursed his lips and drummed the fingers of one hand on the tablet in front of him. “Imagine going through that crap line by line of code?”
“We've got AI support for that now. The code smiths just look at the tangles the AI flag,” Jamey said absently. Charlie nodded wryly. Some of the software was scary smart and practically wrote itself. “We're going to have to run a full sim, complete with a jump, transit, and then exit. That's going to run a lot of processing time. Subsystems cut down on that; the latest generation of hardware cuts it down by half. But it's still in the works like I said …”
“We've got some systems locked,” Charlie said, shaking his head. They had to get the project underway; the big boss had been adamant about that. Daedalus had started construction with low level subassemblies years ago, but it was past time to get off the stick and make the primaries. He was anxious to see his creation take flight. “I can see if we can divert some of our in-house prototyping, at least the electronics side. Maybe make some processors and come up with a poor man's super computer to play with,” Charlie said.
Jamey blinked as Levare pursed his lips in annoyance. “Can you do that?”
Charlie shrugged and winked at Trey who snorted. “Sure, no one told us no. It'll take a bit of creative logistics, but we've got a surplus. Sure. I'll see what I can do.”
Jamey grinned. “Cool.”
“Emulators are fine and dandy, don't get me wrong, I'm not discouraging you, Charlie,” Levare said, holding up a hand. “But we need to get these things running their software in real time for long periods. Put them through their paces. Run problems at them too. But just getting them burned in and ticking over smoothly is important. Vital really,” he said, shaking his head.
“We are. Some equipment like life support is a given,” Jamey said. “That's stock ship or station,” he said waving a dismissive hand. “Most of the hardware is too. We've run it all through the shaking tables, hot, cold rooms, all of it.” Trey nodded in silent agreement. The subdesign groups were having hissy fits over what the shake and bake torture testing was doing to their precious hardware. That was tough. At least they weren't all expensive prototypes, but they were first or second line production models. Finding out they had to go back to the drawing board because something snapped under thrust or froze was making quite a few people unhappy.
“But we've got some hardware that is supposed to have self-diagnostics and a limited self-repair. We need to get that stuff tested too,” Levare said testily.
“We're testing individual components and finding their breaking points,” Charlie said slowly. “But you are back on the kick about an all up test. We'll get there, Levare, give it time. Once we get the bird's design finalized, we'll do system integration tests at each phase. Probably more than one,” he said with a shrug.
“We've got to get there first,” Levare said, taking himself off.
Jamey shook his head. “And they say I'm impatient?” he asked in a soft voice. Charlie snorted.
“Still going on the first ship?” Charlie asked, eying him. Trey turned expectantly to Jamey as well. He'd heard someone had promised the young man a slot on the first starship if he signed on to the project. It was quite an incentive, one that worked for a young man. The young always thought of themselves as immortal and had that zest for life and exploring.
Jamey snorted. “But of course!” He smiled broadly as Charlie and Trey chuckled. “I'm not Wes Crusher or any crap like that. But the force emitters are my babies. Same for the drive. I'm the best person to watch over them,” he said.
“Good,” Charlie said with a nod.
“Definitely,” Trey rumbled. “But that's then. For now, get back to work,” he said. The other two men nodded as they left the room. Kathy grimaced.
“Something to add Kath? You've been awfully quiet.”
“I'm …” She frowned, trying to put her ambivalent feelings into words. “Worried. Concerned. I'm not sure about the dolphins; there are a lot of issues there. They have a very short attention span, and the feed for them is dry and … well, boring. It worries me that they'll unfocus or stop caring about their job.”
Trey eyed her and then nodded. “You and me both,” He sighed, sitting back a bit. “A lot of people are uncomfortable with their participation. Personally I'd like to train a couple dozen people … two-leg people,” he said smiling. She bobbed a nod and smiled slightly in understanding. “To handle the job. That would simplify our logistics and the ship design,” he said.
Kathy thought about that and then winced. So far they'd managed to build a simulator based on the telemetry feed from the probes that had survived. Those who had tried to keep up with it had handled it for about a half hour to an hour before they'd grown fatigued. It wasn't just a matter of reflexes; it was seeing the course ahead and balancing protocol with instincts. The computers could plot a course almost as well, but they'd found that they were more lucky than good. And the computer didn't care if it crashed. Putting the two together seemed to help sometimes. They'd found that the computer could keep the general course well enough, but some of the trickier spots were beyond both. Dolphins, however, had handled the sims they'd thrown at them without batting an eye. “Well, at least they can eat frozen fish protein. Or the replicated fish protein,” she said, getting back to the current conversation.
“We're still unsure about having food printers on board. It makes sense, but we're going to have a fully stocked, five star galley on board. It doesn't make sense to have 3-D printers
that can print food too.”
“And the fish?” Kathy asked, raising an eyebrow. “The fresher the better.”
“That's … hell. We've discussed an aqua farm on the ship. We've got a small one for tilapia to help with the waste. But …” Trey shrugged.
“They need fresh as much as possible to maintain their own morale. We're feeding them fresh here. They will accept the protein sludge, but they aren't happy about it. Something about the taste and texture throws them for a loop,” Kathy said, shaking her head. “Frozen …” She grimaced, as did Trey. “I'm just imagining freezing all the fish needed for them to survive for the length of one journey.”
“Me too,” Trey admitted.
“Now imagine if something happened.” He eyed her. She shrugged. “You and Charlie are always going on about redundancy and planning for Murphy. Now imagine if there is a power failure. Or one of the freezers malfunctions and no one catches it? Or freezer burnt fish? How long can they keep for, a year?”
Trey drummed his fingers on the desk and then sighed a heartfelt sigh of annoyed disgust. “You would bring all that up. Damn it,” he grumbled. “Just when I think we've got a handle on the situation …”
“Better to catch it now than later, boss,” Kathy said with a half shrug of apology.
“True,” he said, still sounding annoyed. “Aqua farm with a printer and freezer for backup. Redundancy indeed. We have to keep them happy, and we have to keep them fed. If they die, the entire ship is screwed,” Trey said making a face.
“Yeah, and I know how you hate that idea too,” Kathy said. “I think we need to work on ways to get people to be able to handle the navigation,” she said.
“It's not that, it's the helm. Navigation we've got covered, or at least I think we do. We won't know for sure until we run another test. But so far, the probes we've sent out have handled it well. Very little kick on the last one.”
“The probes that we got data from you mean,” Kathy reminded him. “And that was with an AI driver. I'm wondering what they are running into in hyper that is throwing them off. It's all in the southwest of Sol?”