Like the original Socratic Method, it stimulated memory in such a way that no one ever forgot the lessons. I’d thought it complex, until in a flash, it all seemed clear. The basic facts were all connected with other necessary facts and memories in a chain of study history that came together to make a whole. In other words, he used student memory as his lever by repeating lessons over others in such a subtle manner that the students did not know they were in fact constantly reviewing what had gone before and adding to it in small increments.
His technique was unique in that he’d brought all of the important problems of building the engines together in a cohesive and unforgettable way, step by step, repeated back for a few steps with questions directed at the students, then another step forward to the next factor and how it was necessary for the whole. When called upon to recite the steps, students knew they had better be ready with the next logical answer. Although soft of voice, the disgust that could drip from his lips when he caught a student behind the learning curve was not pretty.
Miki had a mind for such things and after class we’d put it all together to make sure neither of us had drifted. She would fill me in on points I’d missed and I would do the same for her. By the end of the semester, we had those engines so much on our minds we could probably have built one right in our rooms, if we’d had the space. It was the one class I’d taken in my career that I could honestly say I had truly enjoyed.
∆ ∆ ∆
I was on my way to the bridge after the propulsion class, whistling as I walked, when I heard and smelled the sizzle of a plasma pistol. A thin line bolt of super-hot plasma whooshed past my cheek, crinkled my already curly hair on the right side above my ear and ricocheted off of the metal of the central walkway wall. It then dissipated.
So surprising was this event, I did not think to duck, not that it would have done any good. The bolt hit the wall before I realized what had happened. If it had been an inch to the left or the weapon had been selected for sustained fire rather than single shot, it would have taken my head off.
I turned instantly toward the blast and out of the corner of my eye was able to spot a leg and a boot as it disappeared into a side room. I could not identify who it had been. There were small rooms and closets for storage all along the main corridor and the one used by the shooter had been about thirty meters from where I’d been standing. The leg was covered by a standard stretchable white cadet uniform. I turned to look at the wall and could see where the bolt had struck. It was red hot.
The central walkway had alarm switches every fifty yards and one of them was within a few yards of me. I broke the glass by pulling the handle down hard and waited for an answer from the security monitor. He or she must have been half asleep at the time, because it took a full fifteen seconds before anyone answered.
Finally, a voice came through. It was dripping with sarcasm.
“Lieutenant Sparks here. What’s your problem, Ensign?”
“I have an emergency, for the captain’s ears only. Get him down here immediately and order an investigation team from security to accompany him. We will also need a ships’ personnel count, without delay. We need to know who is where and why?”
“Right, you want me to order the captain to jump to your order? You bet I will, Ensign, I’ll do that right away. Now, tell me what’s going on.”
“No sir, this is for the captain’s ears only. And if you don’t get off your ass and do your job, I’ll file a dereliction of duty charge against you. Now, move!”
“Silence followed and then I could hear him talking in the background. Finally, “He’s on his way. And you’d better have a genuine emergency or I will have YOU up on charges.”
“You would be well advised to keep your mouth shut, sir. The captain will be royally pissed if you don’t and he is going to want a full report of all this. I am invoking classification number one on this situation, until the captain says otherwise. If you say a word to anyone you may find yourself a stripe short and running the garbage machinery for the next year.”
Captain Hollenbeck arrived within a minute. He must have been right next to the main transport tube when he received the message. Thirty seconds later two Marines from ship’s security arrived from the other direction, both with their hands on their plasma pistols.
“What’s up, Stick?” The captain said, huffing a bit.
“Someone shot at me with a plasma weapon, sir. I can hardly believe it myself and I knew you would not want this out until it had been thoroughly investigated. Look there, at the wall.” I pointed at the burn mark and suggested he touch it to see if it was still warm.
One of the Marines held the captain back, “I’ll do it, sir.”
He put his hand on the wall and jerked it back quickly, shaking it to cool. “No question, sir. It is still very hot. What are your orders?”
“Stick, do you know where it came from?”
“Only generally, sir. I can point out the door where I believe he escaped. My back was turned at the time of the shot and all I saw was a cadet’s boot and pant leg disappear into that third door down. Where it leads, I have no idea.”
“It’s a shortcut to the main lounge.” Turning to the Marines, the captain said, “Gentlemen, see what you can find down there and track whoever it was if you get any leads. Question the personnel in the lounge and all of the patrons. I want to know if anyone saw a cadet enter the lounge from this side entrance in the past few minutes. Call in the CID with all of its tracking equipment, DNA snoopers, and check the armory to see who might have checked out the weapon. And remember, this is classification number one.”
Both Marines acknowledged by taking off at a run. They arrived in seconds at the side door and ripped it open. Without fear, they both rushed into the compartment and disappeared from our view.”
“I directed classification number one on the incident earlier, Captain. So it should be contained for now. Lieutenant Sparks took my initial report and contacted you as I requested. I’ve never heard of anything like this happening before and it seemed important enough to leave up to you.”
Captain Hollenbeck was thinking, his hand scratching his chin. “Yes, you did the right thing. Do you want me to talk to Lieutenant Sparks? My alert went off when you pulled the emergency lever and I heard your conversation. Most folks don’t know I am that closely wired in to the emergency system, so keep it close.”
“Yes, sir. And no, I do not want to cause Sparks any grief over this. He did what many ranking officers would have done when he thought an ensign was being rash. I abused him a bit when he hesitated to call you and I’m sure he got the message. My language was too sharp at the time, probably a hangover from my shock at how close I’d come to being killed. I had no business talking to a superior officer that way.”
The captain nodded. “Okay, let’s forget that for now and see if we can figure out who did this.” He reached for the emergency switch and was answered immediately by Lieutenant Sparks.”
“Lieutenant, I will need a lock down in place for all personnel. Do it immediately. Do not report the cause, if you know it.”
“I do not, sir. A ship’s count is now underway.”
“Good. This matter is to remain under classification one until I say differently.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Sparks, you should take this as a lesson. No matter who reports an emergency, you get on it immediately. We have a serious situation here and time was of the essence.”
“Yes, sir. It won’t happen again, sir.”
“Good. Now, Ensign, let’s go see what we can find.”
∆ ∆ ∆
As we approached the side door to the lounge, one of the Marines came back out. “Sir, we found this weapon behind a ship’s frame here in the passageway. It was apparently just dropped in between the wall and frame. I found it by its smell. A recently discharged plasma pistol gives off a distinctive odor, like ozone. I picked up it on as we were passing through. If it had been a few days later,
I would have missed it.”
Captain Hollenbeck took the weapon by the barrel and lifted it to his nose, nodding as he did so.
“Outstanding work, Private Parker. You just earned another stripe, if it is acceptable to Colonel Lipscomb. Now, get back in there and help Sergeant Smith with the identification process. I want all personal identification badges scanned for future reference with notes as to where each individual said they were at the time this happened.”
The Marine beamed. How the Captain knew his name was beyond me. It was beginning to appear as if he personally knew everyone on board, all five thousand souls.
The CID chief arrived a few moments later while the captain was questioning me. He was in his Marine blue dress uniform, as if going to a special event of some kind. He stood by, waiting his turn.
“As far as I know, Captain,” I said. “… my only enemy on this ship is Buryl Boggs. I tried to make peace with him just yesterday and he was having none of it. He blamed me for taking top honors away from him and stealing his girl. Although I considered it a foolish remark at the time, he did threaten to get even with me.
The problem is, Buryl is very intelligent and it makes no sense at all for him to hate me so, enough to steal a weapon and shoot at me? It’s just insane. Nothing could be worth that, even the satisfaction of vengeance.
Nevertheless, it might be wise to send him to a psychiatrist to see if there is anything manifestly wrong with his thought processes. I understand the medical scanners can determine a great deal about a person’s stability. I would not do it, however, without first establishing some factual basis for it. My word should not be enough.”
The CID chief nodded. “He’s right Captain. We would need probable cause before we did anything like that.”
“Stick,” the captain said. “This is Colonel Lipscomb, head of our Marine Criminal Investigation Division as well as the security team. He will be in charge of this matter from now on. Anything involving a weapon on board falls within his jurisdiction. Tell him where we are so far. I am going to go into the lounge to see what I can see.”
“Yes, sir,” I said as I turned to the commander. “… and glad to meet you, sir.”
“Call me Colonel, Ensign. It salves my ego”.
I had to chuckle at that. The man was a smooth character.
“Aye aye, Colonel. Do you want to talk here or somewhere more private? More classes will be emptying out soon and we may find ourselves swamped with people wanting to know what is going on.”
Chapter 13
The Marine security contingent, a full company consisting of two hundred men fanned out to check individual stories, I.D.s and review the ship’s quantum level video system. They used the captain’s control portal for this because there were only two on the entire ship and the other was located in the chief engineer’s office some distance away. As I understood it, there was no place on the ship that was not covered by these micro systems, except the restrooms and bedrooms. Modesty still existed to some extent, although for the most part people had grown beyond the need for absolute personal privacy.
Reviewing the videos in the colonial areas required special approval of the board of trustees, the captain or Colonel Lipscomb. Fortunately, we were not in the colonial area. The captain gave his permission and was seconded by Colonel Lipscomb.
Upon keying the proper code sequence into the system, which was located in the captain’s personal office just off of the master control room, the video menu came up on the screen. At this point, only the captain, Colonel Lipscomb and I were allowed in.
I did not think I should be there and said so. The Captain waved off my complaint, saying that since I was the victim of this assault, I was entitled to see whatever was available.
Colonel Lipscomb, a classic looking Marine with his brown hair cut high and tight, a square jaw and darkish complexion, was most familiar with the monitoring system. He took command of the scanning and began to call up various spots he thought might be of interest. When he reached the hallway where the event took place, we were all surprised to find nothing at all on the screen. A complete scan of the hall from one end to the other revealed a few pedestrians exercising down by the rear of the ship, but no one else. My image was not there either. It did show a sudden flare of red hot metal on the wall.
“What the hell,” I said. “This can’t be.”
“Well, it is,” the colonel said. “So what happened? We know a shot was fired because we can see the mark on the wall. The person who fired it has been erased as if he were never there. In erasing whoever fired the weapon, they also erased evidence of Ensign Kelso having been there.”
Captain Hollenbeck leaned back in his chair. I stared at him.
He finally said, “Someone has cracked the quantum protected code for the entire video system. He may well have erased all evidence of wherever he was all day.”
I thought about this for a moment and then suggested that if he had done that, it would not have shown him leaving his own room that morning. If we can then show with witnesses that he appeared somewhere else during the day, we would know who it was even if the video did not show him.”
“Could it be that simple?” Colonel Lipscomb asked.
I nodded. “Captain, it’s a quantum video code, entangled only here in your office for your eyes. You can open it up and show us. Without you, it could not be done. In order for him to be erased, the code would have to have been entangled just for him. It’s either that, or he has his own access and codes to the system. And then, he has erased me as well. That means he must have erased me shortly after he fired the shot. He has access to the video system from somewhere else, most likely somewhere close by. The question is, where?
“Captain,” Colonel Lipscomb said. “I think I agree with Ensign Kelso. This is a fascinating mystery and we need confirmation. So, before we go charging off to find this additional portal, we should bring in a few physicists to confirm the idea. I am no physicist and know squat about quantum mechanics. I do know that when some unauthorized person attempts to interrupt a message sent via quantum encoded processes, it will simply go away.”
“I know someone who can answer these questions, Captain,” I said. “Commander Herman. Let’s get her in here. She is military, not a civilian theorist and is an absolute whiz at quantum effects. If she can give us the answer, we won’t have to go to the civilian side and worry them.”
The captain looked at Colonel Lipscomb. “Colonel, it’s your investigation. What do you think?”
“I think we have nothing to lose. Contact her immediately and get her in here.”
Lieutenant Herman arrived in the captain’s office five minutes later. She looked worried, unused to being summoned by senior officers.
Captain Hollenbeck stood, returned Herman’s salute and then directed her to sit down in one of the chairs.
“Ensign Kelso, could you bring Lieutenant Commander Herman up to speed here,” he said. “Explain what has happened and what we are trying to figure out.”
I detailed the events of the day and watched her eyes grow wide.
“Someone shot at you? Why on Earth would anyone do that?”
“Commander,” I said. “That’s what we want to know, and in order for us to get there we need someone to tell us how the shooter might have taken over the quantum video system, erased both their own image and that of me. They forgot, or could not erase the burn mark on the wall and that is likely to be their undoing. I’ve given the captain and Colonel Lipscomb my best thoughts and still have no real explanation of how it could have been done.”
Herman took a deep breath, dropped her head and then stood and started walking around. I thought it just like her typical behavior in math class.
“They erased both images without access to the captain’s portal? That’s impossible, unless … they accessed it from a separate portal entangled just for the shooter. Are there any other portals aboard ship, Captain?”
The captain seemed to be acces
sing some very old memories. After a moment, he turned to a different computer and typed in some numbers. A schematic of the ship’s photonic-electrical monitoring system came up on the large screen behind his desk. He apparently used this system very rarely, otherwise it would have been mounted on the opposite wall. He scrolled through several sections of the ship’s diagrams and finally settled on one. It demonstrated the entire video system of the ship with every one of its sensors lighting up as he scrolled through them.
He finally stopped, with a single section highlighted. The photon flow feeding the sensors seemed to diverge from the patterns everywhere else. It was like a ball of string suddenly introduced into a hopscotch diagram and clearly out of place.
“What have we here?” he mumbled. “This does not fit. And, for it to exist at all, it must have been here since the ship was built. There is no other way, nor any reason for it to be there.”
He looked at Lieutenant Herman. “Do you agree?”
“Captain,” she said. “I’ll have to take your word for it, because I was not involved in the construction or design of any of this. Nevertheless, systems using quantum security would have been designed as simply as possible. The more input into the flow of the photons the more complexity would be introduced into the system and the more likely it would be to malfunction. That section of the flow resembles a Gordian knot and I can’t think of anything that would be more likely to divert it from its intended course. Any cross-over in the flow would trigger termination of the security. So, there would have to be a controllable diverter in that knot that could function without collapsing the entire video system. Who on this ship could have created something like that?”
My mind was focused now, thinking of how or why such a thing might have been included in the design.
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