After a long time the machine spoke in the absolutist masculine tone programmed into it. "Diagnosis complete, patient suffers from unknown form of neurological biochemical imbalance. Recommend patient be placed in stasis until treatment can be continued at a Primary Care and Research Facility."
PC&Rs were where the very sick went. People with advanced or obscure conditions the medical machines were uncertain about got sent to a Primary Care and Research Facility. Much like the Code of Law the PC&Rs were defined by a set of basic rules agreed upon by the majority of Laniakea, and much like Lawships the demand was rare enough that not every world had one.
Forcing himself to stop rubbing at his doubly injured shoulder Kassad inquired, "Is there any treatment for the symptoms until we reach a PC&R?"
After a search of its database the machine explained, "An eighty four percent correlation treatment has been extrapolated from similar conditions on record. Weekly time release injections will return crew to minimum functionality. Side effects include numbness and psychological disassociation. Prolonged use of correlation treatment will result in permanent damage."
This was the main reason Kassad had never replaced Sabha's aging automated medic with its worn manual controls and scuffed surface. Being a model built for military service it was able to formulate 'walking wounded' treatments for almost any malady. It could mix a cocktail capable of rendering a person cut in half able to perform basic tasks by disabling the self preservation limits imposed by biology. As such it wasn't a feature that Kassad used often or lightly, but being a one man show most of the time it was an option that provided some peace of mind.
"Do it." Kassad ordered. "And make up a second shot for me." Underneath the diagnostic bed the automated medical unit's miniature chemical factory began manufacturing the requested medicine.
"Maybe you should just put me in stasis?" Greene suggested while admitting privately that she was just trying to avoid dealing with the pain.
Shaking his head Kassad rejected the idea. "If anything happens to me our passengers are going to need an advocate. There's a pretty good chance I'll be spending at least a little time incarcerated as this is all sorted out so that leaves you."
"Won't they arrest me too?" Greene asked.
"Unlikely." Kassad shrugged. "That's part of the captain being ultimately responsible. You're just a passenger, not a lot of responsibilities there so there's not really anything they can charge you with." As he spoke a slender mechanical arm extended from the automated medic to provide Greene's medicine and then Kassad leaned in tapping the device and saying, "Get that second shot up here, and give me something for a dislocated shoulder."
Nonplused by the command the machine replied, "A dislocated limb will require full patient encasement."
With emphasis on the word 'we' Kassad said, "We already reset it. I just want something for the pain."
The machine was emotionlessly defiant."Non-localized analgesics will react negatively with current treatment. Recommend localized application of anti-inflammatory and four hours of sonic remediation of the affected area."
Since there was no way Kassad was going to take himself out of action for four hours he replied, "Thanks for nothing."
Sitting up, hooking her legs against the table to keep from drifting away, Greene looked around and at her hands before declaring, "I guess that's better."
A second injection swung up and administered to Kassad who looked away saying, "I'll double check the navigation track, but this should keep us alive at least until we get to Mareville."
With her mind back in the familiar ruts of life saving routine and procedure Greene asked, "Don't we need to bring the reactionless drive online first?"
Rubbing at his arm where the injection had been made through his sleeve Kassad squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to focus and said, "This stuff doesn't help you think any clearer does it?" Looking around to see if he could spot Canis lurking nearby Kassad announced, "We also need to get Canis checked out."
Gesturing to the diagnostic bed she was still sitting on Greene incredulously asked, "In this?"
Kassad explained, "It's good for over four hundred species, although I did have to add canines in with a software patch." Not finding Canis anywhere nearby Kassad shouted sternly, "Canis, come."
Concern gripped Greene. "You don't think he's having a worse reaction than we are?"
Leaning out of the sickbay hatch Kassad scanned the area for Canis saying, "No, he just doesn't like the vet."
Confused by the term Greene inquired, "The what?"
Pulling himself through the sickbay entry Kassad shouted, "Canis you must have a physical exam my friend." Then acknowledging Greene he explained, "Vet, veterinarian that's what they call someone who provides medical care for animals."
Thinking that perhaps this shed some light on the background of Sabha's captain Greene inquired, "Ah, did you grow up on a farm?"
"No." Kassad replied without offering further explanation as he began poking his head into whatever hidey holes that Canis might have secreted himself into. "Help me find Canis, check the cargo hold, and be thorough. Last time I found him in wedged under the primary heat exchanger."
Rather than head to the cargo hold Greene pointed to one of the tables in the lounge area saying, "I think I see a foot."
Although the protruding hind foot immediately disappeared in response to its mention Kassad investigated cautiously knowing full well the dog could bolt. Canis was far more adept at maneuvering in zero gravity than anyone Kassad had ever met. This meant any escape avenues had to be covered for a quick grab. Drifting above the table with his feet to the nearest bulkhead ready to push off in pursuit Kassad peaked below.
Canis responded to the intruding look with a low and rolling plaintive yowl that sounded like grumbling.
In his most authoritative tones Kassad said, "This has to be done now, before we get to Mareville."
To Greene's ears it sounded as if Canis' complaining yowl of response were meant to mimic terrestrial speech patterns.
Kassad remained persistent. "You know post hazardous environmental exposure physicals are mandatory. What would they say about a captain derelict in looking after their crew's health?"
Greene rolled her eyes at Canis' low moan of reply to Kassad's argument. "You know he can't really understand you."
Carefully reaching one arm under the table Kassad dismissed Greene's cynical comment. "Yes, I'm sure he wedged himself under the table purely as a random response to something completely disconnected to my words."
Before Greene could say anything more Canis exploded out from under the table as a ball of fur and loud barking. Kassad managed to grapple the hound with one hand then bring another arm around pulling Canis close to his chest. Their combined momentum left them spinning in mid air as Kassad cooed reassurances to the protesting barks from the wriggling animal.
"You two are quite the sight." Greene said with her voice lost in the cacophony.
Narrowly avoiding a mouth full of dog foot Kassad pleaded, "Lend a hand and haul us into sickbay."
With a smirk Greene grabbed Kassad by one foot and while bracing herself with hand and foot holds pulled the two back into the sickbay. Aside from his vocal complaints there was very little resistance from Canis who allowed himself to be placed on the diagnostic table. The heart wrenching whining went on as the automated medic did its work.
After a long examination the machine opened and announced, "All vital signs within normal range. Patient stress levels consistent with overwork. Recommend reduced shift hours."
With its diagnosis complete the table opened and Canis bounded from the table and quickly out of sight as Greene asked, "The machine does know Canis is an animal right?"
Cocking his head to one side Kassad massaged his bad shoulder absently with one hand and observed, "You're the only one arguing that point, and the machine is right. We all could use some down time." Cutting off Greene's complaint with one hand Kassad said, "We'll
take a few hours to get right in the head before we attempt to bring the reactionless drive online. It's a tricky operation and we can't afford any mistakes out here."
Opening her mouth to point out that they might not have time Greene stopped herself, internally conceding that any threat was best met with a clear head, said, "Fine, but I don't think I'll be able to sleep."
Chapter 17: "Good Intentions"
"Triple redundancy is the standard for all critical systems… except crew."
-Old spacer's saying
True to her word Greene couldn't sleep but instead kept thinking about the possibility of being unable to bring their velocity under control. The idea of speeding out of control across the length of Laniakea, endlessly searching for somewhere to come to port, jolted her out of every effort to doze. Eventually with a stifled yawn Greene determined to begin the process of bringing the reactionless drive online alone.
On her way to Sabha's cockpit Greene moved quietly, careful not to bump anything with her legs as she pulled along the handholds, but as she grew closer she heard activity in the ship's tiny gym. Peaking in she saw Canis wearing a tension harness that held him to the room's treadmill apparently without any lingering effects from the earlier drama. The dog trotted happily along through the open meadow projected on the wall in front of him. His mouth hung open and occasionally he paused to sniff at the faux-scents of plant and animal generated by the system to complete the illusion.
Suddenly Canis froze in mid stride with his tail straight back, ears up, and eyes locked straight ahead. For a moment Greene thought that the guard dog had spotted her, and she wondered what exactly the consequences of having her plan discovered by the animal might be. Something small and brown flashed across the projection and in an explosion of energy Canis raced virtually after the creature over hills, through brush, and across small streams.
Backing away from the gym entrance Greene pulled through the ladder-well and into the cockpit. A quick guilty look down the short and narrow 'up-stairs' corridor leading to the captain's stateroom and life support spaces confirmed she was alone. Kassad's door was closed and all was silent even the console systems were displaying only minimal standby information.
Reactionless drive systems were a technology whose origins were lost to time. Rediscovery of the manufacturing techniques had required that unique logic defying asymmetrical thinking that the terrestrial species was infamous for. After that the utility and reliability of reactionless drive systems had made them almost instantly ubiquitous.
Reliability of reactionless drive systems meant that they often went decades or more without being shut off. Many of the legacy systems from the Lost Era had been run continuously for thousands of years without incident. By the same token those few legacy systems that had been taken offline for inspection and analysis seldom regained their original functionality.
Keeping a reactionless drive active was a simple matter. So long as power was available it was easy to maintain an inertial bias strong enough to keep the forces with the device balanced. When the system wasn't needed the inertial bias could be reduced to a low enough level to make it negligible. If the reactionless drive even went offline the process of reactivating it was much more involved.
Ordinarily it would be the task of a shipyard facility to do the work of reactivating a deactivated reactionless drive system. It was possible to reinitialize the functional state of the drive's core without elaborate shipyard instruments, but it was a complicated and risky process. There were more things that could go wrong with the process than could go right and any failures or lapses could ruin the drive or, more catastrophically, cause it to explosively fracture.
At the heart of any reactionless drive, beneath a shroud of regulating apparatus, was a core of precisely atomically aligned matter. Most commonly a core of pure iron was used for its combination of density, stability, and ease of alignment. When properly initialized the core could be endowed with artificially induced momentum that it would in turn impart to whatever structure it was mounted on. If improperly initialized an imbalanced reactionless drive core would either fail to function or tear itself apart with enough force to send fragments hurtling at tremendous velocity through anything in their path.
Taking the pilot's seat Greene called up the maintenance subroutines as she stifled a yawn. None of the sub-systems showed any signs of malfunction. A small test pulse of energy through the iron core revealed its internal structure to be perfectly coherent.
Having expected extensive work just to prepare the drive core for charging Greene was pleasantly surprised. What she was looking at appeared to be as functional as if it had just rolled off the production line that had assembled it. Since there was nothing indicating the drive core or its support systems wouldn't work Greene optimistically considered beginning the process of charging the core.
After all while Greene knew that the process required some manual oversight she had every reason to suspect that it, like everything else in the modern universe, was heavily automated. Investigation into what would be required confirmed this assumption and emboldened her. Looking over the data it seemed to Greene that the drive could be up and running in less than an hour if everything went well, and she had every reason to believe that it would.
It took a lot of energy to move a thousand tons of ship, and it took a lot of finesse to balance that energy within the reactionless drive core. Thousands of kilowatts were poured into each layer of iron crystal while alternate layers were countercharged to keep the whole in balance. Most of that energy would end up in being converted into other dimensional aspects of the matter in a process that was only understood in abstract theory.
Bringing the reactionless drive online was made hazardous due to the sensitivity of the core to interference from nearby electromagnetic sources and irregularities in the flow rate of electrical input. It was these variables that made constant monitoring necessary. When imbalances occurred they had to be drained away quickly, before they caused a cascade collapse, so that the process could be restarted at the last balanced layer.
A real shipyard system would have had sophisticated computer monitoring software and hardware to help the process. Full shipyard systems would also have had heavy electromagnetic shielding to minimize interference, and that too was only minimally replicated within Sabha. In spite of these hurdles it was entirely, and temptingly, possible to manage the process manually.
As a youth Greene had heard space crew talk about manually restarting cold reactionless cores in tall tales of daring-do. As a function of the controls in front of her the process looked very straightforward. In fact those tall tales looked increasingly to have been the product of exaggeration rather than reality as she started up the process herself.
Everything went smoothly at first. Each layer charged cleanly and smoothly until an involuntary twitch from Greene inadvertently aborted a charge layer that was outwardly normal. After that the recharge of the iron crystal layer following the aborted layer seemed to hesitate for a fraction of a second prompting Greene to abort the charging of that layer as well. Soon she was questioning all of her observations and making very little progress. Only after an hour into recharging the reactionless core did it occur to Greene that she was too exhausted to complete the process safely.
Increasingly Greene's decisions made the situation worse and the threat of a cascade failure loomed ominously until a little more urgently than she would have liked to sound Greene called out, "Kassad!"
Clam and very close Kassad's voice came back, "Yes?"
"What?" Greene turned quickly to see Kassad drifting languidly in the air behind her with a disinterested expression on his face then she turned back to her task demanding, "How long have you been back there?"
With a sleepy yawn Kassad admitted, "Sabha alerted me to tampering an hour ago, but I went back to sleep. I certainly didn't think you’d try to recharge the reactionless drive all by yourself." Another yawn and a bit of stretching followed before
Kassad continued, "I woke up hungry a few minutes ago and saw you in here on my way to the galley. All those crystal layers are kind of pretty though… almost hypnotic."
Annoyed by Kassad's flippant attitude Greene replied, "Well now I'm in a little over my head and I need you to take over for a while."
In what he intended as a reassuring tone Kassad said, "No you don't. I brought along a portable recharger system I borrowed off of a salvage ship; the captain and I go way back." Pointing at the work Greene had already done Kassad scoffed at the absurdity of the situation saying, "I'm certainly not going to try to recharge the thing by hand if I don't have to. People get killed doing that."
Momentarily relieved Greene looked over the controls for a general abort key. "So I should just dump all the work I've already done?" Kassad reached past Greene to toggle a control that made the entire display go black and Greene's eyes went wide in terror, "There's a gigajoule already in there!" She yelled fearing a fracture of the core.
A core fracture would prevent a full charge. It would also riddle the core with microfractures that would place their own limitations on performance. Worse than this was the reality that any microfracture could rupture into a full blown fracture with little provocation. If this happened it would add its own microfractures to the core in a cascade that could destroy more than the drive itself.
Law's End Page 16