The Passage

by David Poyer

  “Well, hopefully we’ll have it back up before too long. Chief, where’s Mr. Harper?”

  “Chief Warrant’s down eating chow, sir. He’s been working it with us.”

  The 1MC said, “Now lay before the mast, all eight o‘clock reports. Eight o’clock reports will be taken by the XO in his stateroom.”

  “Let me know how things work once you get the new card in.” He remembered something else, looked around for Sanderling, but he’d left. “Chief, when’s our man going to mast?”

  “He’s not, sir. The XO dismissed it.”

  “He dismissed a shoplifting charge?”

  “Said it was a misunderstanding.”

  “Oh.” He thought about that. Then said, “Well, I’ll be aboard tonight. Give me a call in the department office when you get the system back up.”

  AT eight o’clock reports, he told Vysotsky that the techs had the problem with the combat system isolated and should have it fixed soon. The executive officer said in that case, he was going home—it was his son’s birthday; call him when he knew for sure. Dan started to ask him about Sanderling, but there were too many other people around.

  There were chicken sandwiches in the wardroom. He helped himself to one, ate a piece of chocolate sheet cake, and then went down to the weapons office.

  He worked for a couple of hours, taking advantage of the quiet. He kept expecting a call from Dawson, but it got to be nine-thirty, then ten. Finally, he locked up and went back up to the computer room.

  Dawson and Mainhardt were still there, only now Chief Alaska, the chief missile-fire-control technician, was with them. They all had that thousand-yard stare. “Well?” he asked them.

  “That wa’n’t it,” Dawson said.

  Mainhardt said, “Mr. Lenson, it might not be a hardware problem.”

  He looked from one face to the next. “Software? Well, that’s easier to fix, isn’t it?”

  “You want to come over here, take a look? … There it is. This’s what was running this afternoon.”

  Dan looked at the computer. There were two ways to see what was going on inside an AN/UYK-7. There was the monitor-control console, a screen where you could read code during maintenance. Or you could read the lights on the front panel. A lighted bulb was a one, a dark bulb was a zero. He slowly spelled out, “Two, three, five, four, six, three, two, zero.”

  “Pretty good, sir, didn’t know you could read binary. That’s cell number five twenty-three on the engagement program.”

  “So?”

  “Petty Officer Williams,” Dawson called. Williams came out of the back with a looseleaf book.

  Dan said, “Short and simple, please.”

  “Short and simple, aye, sir. Okay, you know we … got the operational program and the subprogram.”

  “The operational program runs the top-level ACDADS system, and hands off to subprograms for a given task.”

  “That’s right. The op program just … runs and runs till we turn it off, we’re in port, or we need the computer for something else. But as we … go from detection to tracking to identification and so forth, it calls other modules up. Computers can only do one thing at a time. They load up, it hands them the data, and they run till it’s time to hand back. Now, we didn’t have no problem today with detection or identification, did we, Lieutenant?”

  “No, everything ran fine right up to the engagement phase.”

  “So that’s where we started looking. We put in a break point and started checking it out. Now it says here—you see here in the listing what we … ought to have, where it come time to hand off to the final guidance-to-launch module. And that on the box is what we do have.”

  Dan looked at the programming in the book, then compared it to the lights. “It doesn’t match.”

  “That’s right, Lieutenant. The hard copy in the listing don’t match what’s in the machine.”

  “How does it translate to missile commands? I mean, are you telling me it’s giving bad commands?”

  “No, sir,” said Dawson. “It’s not giving it any commands. There’s nothing in there anything like a command, good or bad.”

  Dan rubbed his chin. The naked skin still felt strange. “But how did it get changed? The programming’s off a tape, right?”

  “Yes, sir. Tape came from the Fleet Programming Center. That’s the Version Three we told you about, the one Williams worked so hard getting to run for us.”

  “So in the shoot today, the system’s running fine, then it hits this and goes haywire.”

  “Right, sir. So when the fire-control system asks the computer what to do next, it gets this read to it as instructions. And it is just totally confused. It doesn’t know whether to shit or go blind, or do like it did today, tell the missile to find the nearest seagull and blast his ass.”

  “So it wasn’t hardware or operator error; it was a bad tape. Have we got the original?”

  “This is the original, sir. This is what we loaded up with before we got under way.”

  “Can we get a copy from somebody else in the nest?”

  “Not ACDADS, sir. We the only ones got this system.”

  “So we order a new tape, reboot from that, and we’re back in business.”

  “I hope it’s that simple.”

  Dan turned to O’Bierne. The lieutenant commander sloshed his coffee around, took a slug, pointed to the screen. “It might not be just a bad line of code.”

  “It sounds to me like that’s exactly what we’ve got, sir.”

  “I’d check the rest of your system out before you assume that.”

  “Lieutenant Lenson, quarterdeck,” said the 1MC. “Shit,” Dan said. “Excuse me, sir.”

  He called on the J-dial phone and got the petty officer of the watch. “Mr. Lenson. What you got?”

  “Sir, outside call for you.”

  “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Take a message, okay? I’m in the DP center working a major problem.” He hung up and turned back to the conversation, to find that Harper had come in and was talking to O’Bierne.

  “They’re under tight security. Locked in the vault the minute they come aboard. I’m the custodian, so I can guarantee nobody but me, the comm officer, and the guys right here in this space. That’s all that’s had their hands on them.”

  O’Bierne said, “Still, I’d recommend checking your system out thoroughly before you spin another reel.”

  “Attention on deck!”

  Everyone stood as Captain Leighty came in. Dan fought down tired anger. When something was royally screwed up, everybody had to get his two cents’ worth in.

  “Carry on, everyone. Just thought I’d stop by before I went home. Jay, how does it stand?”

  “Excuse me,” Dan said. “Captain—”

  “Mr. Lenson. Didn’t see you at first. Have we got a fix on the problem?”

  “I think we’ve got it located, sir—in the software that tells the missile where the target is. Part of the code in that module is bad.”

  “Can we fix it?”

  Dawson said, “Sir, once the program’s loaded, we can patch it by hand. Put in a break point at the bad line, look at the listing, and use those on/off buttons on the front panel to reset the code in that cell.”

  “But that doesn’t fix the tape,” said Dan.

  “No, sir. We’d have to patch it again every time we rebooted.”

  “Can we modify the tape?”

  “Not with the gear we have aboard, sir. We’ll have to get a reissue.”

  “How long will that take?”

  Harper said, “Sir, if we put a hot priority on it, they can probably get a new piece of programming to us in a day or two. Stuff that important, they fly out.”

  “But Mr. O’Bierne thinks we shouldn’t assume that’s all that’s wrong just yet,” said Dan.

  Leighty took off his cap and aligned it on the workbench. “Cal, I’m glad you’re here to advise us on this.”

  �
�Sir, I don’t really know a hell of a lot about it. I was just saying, if it was up to me, I’d check the rest of the program against the listing. Make sure whatever failure mechanism altered that line didn’t alter any others.”

  “If we do find more glitches, can we get any help from NMSES on this?”

  “Sir, I’d like to, but I’ve got a red-eye back to the West Coast, I need to ask somebody for a ride to the airport. And strictly speaking, we’re only responsible for the part that flies away and blows things up.”

  The phone buzzed again. Williams said, “Mr. Lenson, for you.”

  It was the petty officer of the watch again. “Sir, I got that number for you, you want to call her back. Says she’ll be home.”

  “Shoot.” He jotted it down on his hand with the Navy-issue ballpoint, recognizing it halfway through as Beverly’s. He hung up and went back to the discussion.

  The captain was saying, “If this doesn’t fix it, we don’t have a lot of time to kick it around. We’re getting under way for refresher training, and looking at a six-month deployment two-blocked to that.”

  O’Bierne nodded. “Yes, sir, I understand. Only thing I can say is, if you need help, let your squadron N-four know what’s going on. If you keep having problems, have the type commander go to the software support activity for you; let them beat on whoever developed the tape. Meanwhile, have your guys shut the system down, let everything you’ve got running evaporate, then reload it piece by piece with your eyes locked on the screen.”

  Leighty nodded abruptly. “Okay. Dan, I’ll make that call to squadron. Keep me informed.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  O’Bierne left with the captain. Dan sighed. “Well, Chief Warrant. It’s going to be a long night.”

  “Not for me, sir. I’m going home.”

  Dan glanced at the chiefs. “Let’s go out in the passageway.”

  The corridor was deserted except for a duty-section seaman listlessly steering a push broom. Dan said, “What is this? We need you here on this one.”

  “And I got a family I won’t see for the next six weeks.” Harper squinted. “This isn’t wartime, Lieutenant. I seen the shit hit the fan in Vietnam, and this don’t start to compare.”

  “The combat system’s down. That’s a major problem.”

  “Okay, but let’s not get twisted into the ground on it. Piece of hard-earned career advice from the King Snake, okay?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “When the pressure’s on, people get tunnel vision. Don’t get so tied up on any one problem you lose the big picture. Back off. Leave it to us. We got a week before the training team comes aboard. We’ll get it shaped up before then. So unless you give me a direct order not to, I’m going home. Are you giving me a direct order?”

  Dan hesitated. “No.”

  “Okay, then. See you tomorrow.”

  Dan remembered Sanderling. “Wait a minute. Chief Dawson said something about the charges against Sanderling being dismissed.”

  “Not exactly.” Harper gave him an ironical smile. “The XO had a little informal screening mast in his stateroom. Just Sandy, me, and him. Result: The captain’s friend is to consider himself counseled on being careful with his hands in the Navy Exchange.”

  Dan said slowly, “He dismissed it. Why?”

  “Maybe you can answer that, shipmate, if you think about it a while.” Harper slapped him on the shoulder.

  Dan looked after him as he swung down the passageway, made a left to the quarterdeck, disappeared.

  He wasn’t really sure how he felt, but it wasn’t good. His gear was down, the ship was crippled, and the captain and the exec were playing games over an enlisted pretty boy.

  Instead of going back into the computer room, he went to the wardroom. It was dark and he had to flick on the lights. The bulkhead clock read midnight. The galley was unlocked and there was a round barrel of Rocky Road in the freezer. He wolfed a bowl standing up, drank a cup of thick tepid coffee, then stood looking out the porthole.

  Finally, he went back down, to find Dawson, Mainhardt, Sanderling, and Williams still at work.

  “Sir, quarterdeck was after you. A Mrs. Strishauser, calling back. Says she needs to talk to you tonight. Said it was urgent.”

  “Okay, damn it.” “Urgent” with Beverly? The way she exaggerated? It would keep. “What’s the outcome? Is the rest of the tape clean?”

  “Bad news, sir. We found more nonfunctional code.”

  “By nonfunctional, you mean—”

  “It’s full of this gibberish. Or not full, but—the funny thing is, you get a patch, then some good programming, then seventy or a hundred lines later, crap again.”

  “So what do we do now? Patch those, too?”

  “Sir, we could, but we got a quarter million lines of code here. We’re getting beyond what we can patch manually. Williams here got another idea. We’re gonna dump this whole program and load up Version Two again. Maybe somebody just left that new tape too close to a magnetic field or something.”

  He sighed and looked at the screen, the lines of green-glowing code. “Okay,” he said. “And we’d better send Hofstra up for some more coffee, okay?”

  THE DSs shut the system down, shut everything off, the mainframes and the magnetic drum memory units, let all the Version 3 programming evaporate. Then they brought them back up again and loaded the Version 2 tape.

  It ran, but they found scrambled code in it, too.

  When Vysotsky called at 0300, Dan told him they needed help. The exec said he’d already called the squadron duty officer. “They don’t have any organic assets smart on software, but they can maybe scramble somebody,” he said, sounding half-asleep. “If it’s really beyond the capability of ship’s force.”

  “Sir, I’m shutting everything down. I got a bad feeling.”

  “About what?”

  “That more than one tape is bad.”

  “Maybe we got a bad shipment.”

  “Sir, these tapes came from different commands. I don’t think …” He heard his voice trail off; it sounded weak, but he didn’t know what else to say. He was stumped.

  “We can’t just tag out the computers. What’s your best guess on time to repair? Over forty-eight hours?”

  “At least, sir, unless some major-league bit brain shows up here tomorrow with a magic wand.”

  “Okay, we got to CASREP it.” The casualty report message would tell the world USS Barrett had a major problem and needed help. Vysotsky added, “Have a draft ready to hand to Felipe first thing tomorrow—this morning, I mean. I want it on the street by ten hundred.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It sounds to me like readiness is going to drop to C three. Maybe even C four if we’re honest. What’s your take?”

  Dan felt uneasy discussing the ship’s readiness on a commercial line. “Uh … can I think about that? Brief you in the morning, when you come in?”

  “I guess … . Goes without saying, this doesn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy, Dan. Without those computers, we don’t dance, don’t sing; we just sit in the water and attract shit from everybody.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said, thinking, That’s right, XO, screw it down a little tighter.

  When he finally left the computer room, dawn was breaking over North Charleston. The bulkheads glistened with dew. Gulls were mining the Dumpsters, whirling up in screaming melees when one found a morsel too large to eat in one gulp. He stood watching them as his mind formulated a shadowy image, too shifting and vague to see clearly. Could nonsense be malevolent? Could chaos reproduce itself, feeding on meaning and logic? Gradually destroying what was whole and healthy, converting it to the stuff of its own diabolic, meaningless life …

  He shook his head as if to shake off biting flies. It wasn’t possible. Computers did only what they were told. It was his brain that was generating nonsense, from lack of sleep and too much coffee. He looked at his watch again, thinking he might snatch a nap before officers’ call, and noti
ced only then the ballpointed numerals of Beverly’s phone number, obliterated now to a meaningless and unreadable smear.

  III

  CUBA

  16

  Alcorcón

  AND now it was the wet season. The sky poured rain on the empty fields, lying flat and untended under the drumming downpour. They looked brown and dead. But beneath the glistening soil, the cane was growing, putting out silent secret roots so that one day soon it would shoot upward into the light.

  And like the cane, something secret was growing in Batey Number 3, as well.

  Graciela stood at the central, under the dripping metal eaves of the machine station. Shivering, she looked off across the water shining dully in the wheel ruts, and beyond that at the empty fields and the palely glowing sky.

  The men had begun work on the boat. She hadn’t seen it yet; it was too deep in the swamp, too hard to get to through marsh and mangrove. Mangrove was nearly impenetrable; you had to chop your way in, then wade through water filled with leeches and snakes—not for her, not now. Her other pregnancies hadn’t bothered her this much. She’d worked in the fields right up till the pains began. But this time felt different. Perhaps because she was older. Or the shock of Armando’s death … Whatever the reason, this baby seemed restless, disturbed. It kicked as if to punish her. And where before she’d been able to work all day, now she felt fatigued even as she woke. Some days, she was so exhausted that it was all she could do to drag herself to the clinic for the ration of German dried milk, reserved for children, pregnant women, and nursing mothers.

  Today, the médico had told her it was gone, that the supplies were exhausted. But as soon as she’d stepped out of line, there was more for the others, behind her.

  To hell with them. She was leaving. She hadn’t seen the boat yet, but Miguelito had come, full of himself, and told her about it—how Tomás and the others had studied his book, a child’s book about boats, only that one picture showed how the ribs and stringers were put together. The men had discussed this picture and measured it and finally started stealing materials and smuggling them piece by piece back to the marsh at night.