Shaved Ape Key

by Jerry Boyd

  “Thanks, Boss. When are we heading out?”

  I said, “It looks like this afternoon. Somewhere around two days in FTL, unless Scotti has more tricks up her sleeve I don’t know about.”

  “Boss, this is Scotti you’re talking about. If she didn’t have something up her sleeve, you’d pull her down for mandatory maintenance.”

  I said, “You’ve got a point, Ace. Fly safe, I’ll see you later.”

  “Later, Boss.”

  I couldn’t think of anything else I needed to do right then, so I got up and headed out. Ruth met me outside. “Hi, Boss. I was just coming to show you something I figured out.”

  I said, “Come on in, Gene can page Scotti and Sally.”

  Gene replied, “On it, Boss.”

  Sally came out of the bridge door. She said, “Yes, Boss?”

  I replied, “I dunno. Ruth figured something out, I figured you needed to know about it at least as much as I did. Scotti is on her way.” Just then, Scotti came out of the transit. She said, “Yes, Boss?”

  I said, “C’mon in, we’ll all find out together.” Once we were inside, I said, “Gene, tile the lodge, please.”

  He replied, “Lodge is tiled, Boss.”

  I said, “Okay, Ruth, what have you got?”

  Ruth said, “I finally figured out the control panel in that alien craft.” We were all stunned for a moment. Ruth asked, “Aren’t you even curious?”

  Sally said, “Of course we’re curious. We were just trying to take in what you said. How did you manage it?”

  Ruth replied, “I realized the reason nothing seemed to fall in the right place for the controls I was used to, is because the thing is designed for a smaller being. I scaled my simulation up by sixth fifths, and everything was where it should be, except for a few less important things.”

  Scotti said, “I’ve got to get some maintenance taken care of. I should have caught that.”

  Sally said, “Don’t beat yourself up. I should have thought of that too. What have you deciphered, Ruth?”

  Ruth put up a display, replacing the alien labels with our labels, one by one. She said, I don’t have any idea about the words, or even the letters, but this is what we would call these controls. Like I said, I’m not sure about some of the auxiliary controls, but hopefully, this will at least be a start on their language.”

  I said, “Ruth, could you turn that off for a moment, I think we need more people to see it.”

  She said, “Sure, Boss.”, and turned off her display. I said, “Gene, page Mr. Branham, please.”

  Gene said, “On it, Boss.” We waited for John to return. He and Jane arrived shortly. John said, “Jane was with me, I hope you don’t mind I brought her along.”

  I said, “I don’t mind. I just didn’t want to disrupt the entire medical department again so soon.”

  Jane said, “Don’t worry about it. Gail is pulling the duty this morning. She’ll get ahold of us if she needs anything.” That was when I noticed Jane’s uniform wasn’t quite on right. I said, “Looks like I interrupted something even more important.”

  Jane said, “Wha… Oops, sorry.” She turned around and straightened herself out.

  I said, “Ruth has figured something out. I thought it could help you with understanding the autodoc.” Gene interrupted me. “Boss, should the lodge be tiled for this?”

  I replied, “Yes, Gene. Thank you for remembering.”

  Gene said, “No problem, Boss. The lodge is tiled.”

  Ruth said, “I realized the control panels were built for people smaller than us. When I scaled up the pilot’s panel, it started to make sense.” She put up her simulation again.

  Jane asked, “Could you do that for the autodoc controls as well, please?” Ruth put up a picture of the autodoc panel and blew it up to the right size. Even I could see it made a lot more sense now than it had before. I said, “That’s weird. You would think that your mind could scale things better than that.”

  Jane said, “The size difference was just enough to throw us off, though. Like you say, weird.”

  John said, “It does make more sense, now, but I’m with the rest of you, it really shouldn’t.”

  Ruth said, “As near as I can tell, it has something to do with what you humans call ‘muscle memory’. Your hands know where they should go, for a particular function, and that makes it easier to identify.”

  Jane said, “That makes more sense than anything I can come up with. Who would have thought it was so simple.”

  John said, “I’m more confident I know what’s what, but I still don’t want to try and wake him up if we don’t have to. Just because it looks right, doesn’t mean it is.”

  I said, “I’m with you, John. At the very least, though, it should give us a better chance at a translation.”

  Sally said, “I’m feeding all this into the translation program. With this much more to work on, it should be able to give us some results.”

  I said, “Okay. Is that all you had, Ruth, or do you have some other revelation for us today?”

  Ruth replied, “No, Boss, that’s all I had for today.”

  I said, “Scotti, could you stay a minute?”

  “No, Boss. Fifty -nine seconds is all I have to give you.”

  I said, “I know you’re short without Sam. Are you going to be able to take time for that maintenance you keep complaining about?”

  Scotti replied, “Boss, Diego is twice the hand Sam ever thought about being. Don’t worry, I’m putting myself in to be worked on as soon as we’re safely in FTL.”

  I said, “Glad to hear it. I’m not smart enough to run this ship without you.”

  She headed for the door. “Fly safe, Boss.”

  “Always. You too, Scotti.” She left, and I was about to follow when my comm rang. “Captain Wilson.” Steve said, “Morning, Captain. Sorry to bother you, but I’m looking for my cat.”

  I replied, “Haven’t seen him today. If I were you, I’d check with Janet. That’s where Snitz is spending most of his time.”

  “Thanks, Boss. I’ll do that.”

  “Make sure he stays aboard today. We’re going to Earth this afternoon.”

  “Gotcha, Boss. Talk to you later.”

  “Later, Steve.” I finally made it out of the ready room. A bot I didn’t recognize said, “Morning, Boss.” I said, “Good morning. I must be getting old. I don’t recognize you.”

  “Not as old as me, Sir. I’m PT-756. I used to work with Andre.”

  I looked him up and down. “You’re that sneaky fella he told me about, aren’t you?”

  He said, “Well, Sir, I’m smaller than the other Marines. I have to be sneaky to keep up.”

  I replied, “Whatever it takes to get the job done. You may have heard, I’m not good at remembering numbers. Are you okay with being called Pete?”

  Pete said, “Fine with me, Sir. Does that come with a pay bump?”

  “What are you getting now?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I’ll double it.”

  Pete said, “I think I’m gonna like working for you, Boss.”

  I said, “I hope so. From what I hear about you, I wouldn’t want you mad at me. You get tired of guarding garlic?”

  Pete said, “No future in it. Charlie is moving his farm to Shaved Ape Key when he plants again. Figured I’d get in on the big recovery mission. Sounds like there might be some sneaky involved in that.”

  “I thought you fellas weren’t coming up till later.”

  Pete replied, “I was the only one from the village that wanted to go, so I could get loose and come on, when Ace brought up Bugling Elk and his fellas.”

  I asked, “Bugling Elk is already aboard?”

  “He is. You didn’t know?”

  I said, “I’ve been in meetings all morning. Do you happen to know when Andre is coming aboard?”

  “Ace just launched a small fleet to gather him and his tools. It’ll take them a little bit to load, I’d say he’d be abo
ard in about an hour, maybe an hour and a half.”

  I said, “Sounds like I better get to the bridge and act like I’m running things. Nice talking to you, Pete.”

  Pete said, “Nice talking to you, too, Boss. Fly safe.”

  “You, too, Pete.”

  I went on to the bridge. Topper was head down, working on something. Tex sang out, “Captain on the bridge.” I looked around, like I was trying to find him. I said, “Where?”

  Tex said, “I surely do like working for you, Boss.”

  I replied, “Glad to hear it. As you were.”

  Sally asked, “Would you like the conn, Sir?”

  I said, “I probably better. Sounds like we’re just before heading out for Earth.”

  Sally replied, “We estimate departure in two hours and five minutes.”

  I asked, “Anything I should be aware of?”

  Sally said, “Not that I know of, Sir.”

  I sat in the Captain’s chair. I said, “Please get Morning Flower on the comm.”

  “Aye, Sir.”

  We got a view of the inside of one of the new fighters, with Morning Flower at the controls. She said, “Hi, Bawb. Take care of Bugling Elk for me, okay.”

  I said, “I will. Do you need anything before we take off?”

  She said, “No, Bawb. We don’t need anything. We have these nice fighters to scare off the slavers, we will be fine.”

  “Fly safe, Morning Flower.”

  “You, too, Bawb.”

  When she cut the connection, I asked, “Mr. Topper, is my dress uniform ready for service?”

  Topper replied, “Yes, Boss. Are you sure you don’t want me to make you up something different?”

  I said, “The red is a wedding tradition. We wouldn’t want to mess with that, would we?”

  Topper said, “No, Boss, I suppose not. Ozzie and I have been wondering, Boss. We left a lot of tech back in the shop. If we’re going to be operating from the Gene, shouldn’t we get that away from prying eyes?”

  I replied, “I hate to abandon the old place, after we all went to so much trouble to fix it up, but it would be safer to bring all the Galactic tech aboard the Gene. I guess that means the Audi and the Sonoma need to come aboard, too, doesn’t it?”

  Topper said, “The Audi for sure, we could change the head back on the Sonoma and it would be fine, everything else on it is Earth tech.”

  I said, “Much as I hate to lose the extra power, that’s probably the way to go. People associate that truck with me. If it comes up missing, it will be obvious I’ve moved on.”

  “Ozzie saved all the parts. He can switch it back fairly quickly. Is there anything else we need to take care of while we’re back, Boss?”

  “I need to give Richard back his shotgun. We never got any shells for it, though.”

  Topper asked, “Couldn’t somebody there buy him some?”

  I replied, “I don’t see why not.”

  I got out my comm and dialed Jack. “Hi, Bob. You back in town?”

  “I will be in a few days. Could I get a favor?”

  “Aw gee, Bob, you set me up with all this bounty money and all, I just don’t know if I could be bothered to do you a favor.”

  I replied, “It’s good to have friends, so I’ve heard.”

  “What do you need, Bob?”

  I said, “We fixed up Richard’s shotgun before we left, but I never picked up any shells to fit it. It’s old enough it needs two and half inch twelve gauge, and they’re a little hard to come by. Do you suppose you could rustle him up a couple of boxes, so I can give him the gun back while I’m in town?”

  Jack said, “He pointed that thing at Nikki, and you and Dingus cleaned it up for him, and now you want to buy him ammo for it too? That removes any doubt whether I’m talking to Bob Wilson, or not. The thing is, you’re too late. Dingus rounded him up some shells and gave him the gun back yesterday. They went out hunting today. See what you get when you share your gun safe combination with people?”

  I replied, “Let me get this straight. Dingus still had keys to the house, and you knew my combination from when I lived in town, so the two of you took care of the problem, without any help from me?”

  Jack replied, “You did help a little bit. We had some of your beers while we were there.”

  I said, “Dingus showed you the button to open the panel that hides the safe?”

  “He did. That is some really nice work. I better get back to catching speeders, Bob.”

  I replied, “You know, and I know, if you fellas were serious about keeping people from speeding, you’d be down at the Dodge dealer, giving out free spotlights to everybody who bought a Charger. You’d have folks so paranoid they wouldn’t even drive the speed limit.”

  Jack said, “You might be right about that, Bob. Fly safe.”

  “Talk to you later.”

  Topper said, “So that was already taken care of?”

  I replied, “Apparently so. My three-step plan seems to be working well.”

  Sally asked, “What three-step plan is that, Boss?”

  I said, “Make piles of money, hire experts, admire the results.”

  Topper said, “About that, Boss. Mr. Slongum says he has saucers for us to breathe on, and customers waiting.”

  I asked, “Did he give you enough information to print out the parts you need?”

  “They’re already loaded in the printers, just waiting for your okay.”

  I asked, “Will they put Scotti behind on anything?”

  “No, Boss. She’s letting us use some of the printers she doesn’t need right now.”

  “Why are they not running yet, Topper?”

  He punched a button on his console. “Oh, but they are, Boss.”

  Sally said, “Ace reports the last load of Marines are aboard, Sir.”

  I asked, “Give me Will on the comm, please.”

  “Hi, Bob. What can I do for you?”

  I said, “Nothing, Will. I just wanted to let you know we’re headed out. Going to Earth, be back in a week or ten days. Morning Flower has the fighters to protect the planet, but comm us if anything gets too hairy.”

  “I’ll do that, Bob. Fly safe.”

  “Take care of yourself, Will. We should have chickens when we get back.”

  Will said, “Eggs? You’re a saint, Bob Wilson!”

  I replied, “They say I’m the one that’s full of it. I think you might have me beat.”

  I clicked off, and said, “Okay Helm, take us to Earth.”

  Nikki said, “I’d like to stop in the outer system, to get a better bearing, if that’s alright, Captain.”

  I replied, “Do as you see fit.” The view in the main screen changed, and Nikki set to work, making sure she had the right course figured. After about a minute, she said, “Ready to go, Captain.”

  I said, “Take me home.”

  We eased into FTL. We cruised for a few minutes, and then my comm rang. “Captain Wilson.”

  Zoom said, “Captain, I’m just calling to inform you that I am interim head of Engineering, until Scotti’s maintenance is finished.”

  I said, “Understood. Are you also taking her place on the special projects team, or should I hold all updates till she is vertical again?”

  Zoom replied, “It’s not as simple as that, Captain. I have conditional instructions for different scenarios. Some things I am to proceed with, other things I should wait for her to do.”

  I said, “Am I allowed to call on you for advice on technical matters?”

  Zoom said, “Of course, Sir.”

  I said, “Thank you for the update.”

  She said, “Talk to you later, Captain.”

  After I clicked off, I asked, “Sally, do I have training I need to do?”

  She checked and said, “You’ve done all the coursework I consider useful. I do have some sims I would like you to take on, if you don’t mind.”

  I replied, “Sounds good. You have the conn.”

  I left
the bridge and decided to test my knowledge of the ship. I made a few wrong turns, but I found the simulator deck. Dixie was waiting for me. She said, “Considering you didn’t ask Gene for a route, you did remarkably well, Captain. Let’s see how well you do against Sally’s simulations. Dixie helped me into the machine, and I got started. The first few weren’t too bad, but they gradually got tougher and tougher. I finally got to one I couldn’t beat. I worked and worked, but I wasn’t fast enough. Then it hit me. I let the simulated bots do all the heavy calculation, and I just planned out the way we would handle the scenario. Gene took some damage, and Scotti cussed me in more languages than I could count, but we emerged victorious. I was beat and started taking off my gear. I heard the sound of clapping, and I turned to look. All the humans on board, and a good number of bots, had gathered to watch the simulation on the wall screen in the bay. Steve stepped up to help me get out of the simulator. I asked him, “What’s all the fuss about?” All he said was, “Kobayashi Maru, Boss.”.

  I looked at him, trying to see if he was trying to wind me up. Dixie walked up with a glass of tea and said, “You’ve been in there a long time, Sir. You must be dehydrated.” I took it, and sure enough, I was dehydrated. The glass was defective. The bottom was entirely too close to the top. Dixie said, “Oh, my!” and took the glass to a pitcher, to fill it back up. The second time didn’t go nearly so quickly. She asked if I wanted more, and I waved her off. Nikki stepped up. “How did you do that, Caveman? Humans aren’t supposed to be fast enough to beat that scenario.”

  I replied, “We’re not. But if you set up your attack plan, and let the bots execute it, it’s just fast enough to let you live through it.”

  Nikki said, “But the bots in the sim aren’t unlocked. They couldn’t execute an attack plan.”

  I said, “Somebody went to an awful lot of trouble to make this sim realistic. Unlock codes for bots work in there, just like in the real world.”

  Dixie asked, “What did you say, Sir?”

  “Unlock codes for bots. They work in the sim, just like in real life. It’s just lucky I managed to remember Gene’s original designation, so they would believe I had the authority to unlock them.”

  Dixie froze for a second, when she came back, she said, “That changes many things. No wonder there are so many simulations rated ‘command level only’. Only command level officers knew the proper codes to unlock the bots.”