Chameleon Ch 36

Aboard the Maria Mitchell, with round the clock repairs and double the manpower, they could leave orbit sooner than expected. Quixote paced the bridge in silence, hesitating at each station briefly. Lieutenant May sat at the helm, Lieutenant Lee at navigation, and Chief Petty Officer Watson at the com. The customary whirs, whistles, beeps, and dings announced ongoing processes, from thruster control to life support.

In the operations alcove, between the captain’s chair and the doyen’s office, Quixote stopped to make an adjustment to the air pressure in the shuttle bay. A yellow light blinked off. Xe double checked readings from the science console, the engine readouts, then the patient list and status from sickbay.

“Lieutenant Lee, we’re not going to need navigation for a while yet. Take your shift off the bridge and see if you can be of help to the repair teams, or, heat up rations in the galley, or some other suffering department, as you see necessary. I’ll call you back when we’re ready to leave.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Lieutenant May, you have the con.”

“Aye, Commander.”

“Chief Petty Officer Watson, I have a task for you. Come along.” They headed first to the galley on what was left of deck three. “Anything going on in here?” the commander called to a dark room.

“Just cleaning up,” Tessa said. They heard a pot clang against another object. “Oops. There we go.”

Danielle was putting assorted broken objects into the recycle machine, and Tessa was salvaging the least damaged kitchenware, hanging up saucepans and tools.

“No lighting?”

“It’s dead in here. But Jane gave me some fire-starting crystals, and as soon as I can figure out what to use for fuel, we’ll get some hot water for heating up MRs.”

“Have you considered the items going into the recycle bins?” Tessa folded her arms and shot Quixote a stern, exasperated look. “Of course, yes. I’ll see if the last run up with the captain perhaps, they can bring some kindling from the planet. In the meantime, let’s use the ration packs that don’t require heating.”

“You could heat them with a pistol,” Stu offered. “It’s a little tricky but I had to do it once.

“Creative thinking, Mr. Watson. Carry on, ladies.” They headed for the stairs.

“I thought you wanted me to work in there.”

“No, I was just hoping we would have something else for the crew by now, to eat. I have a problem I need you to track down.”

On the fourth deck, repair crews scurried around the airlock with laser welders, bandaging newly minted sheets of hull plating and corridor over the slowly shrinking hole. Quixote and Watson stopped suddenly as a driver-less, wheeled cart, loaded with heavy panels, dashed in front of them from the direction of the machine shop.

“We have a power drain, and it’s been traced to the computer system. My engineers are too busy with the repairs to educate themselves with the ship’s computer. I’d like you to track it to the source.”

They continued along to the access hatch, directly under the auxiliary control room which was on deck three. Inside the white room, the temperature was kept ten degrees cooler than the rest of the ship. Although moving parts were obsolete, energy and heat, even with fiber optics, were still a concern.

“You think it’s an IT problem?”

“Kym Byrd has traced all the electromagnetic conduits to no avail. Ron Painter examined all the fiber optics after he got Cerebrus off his plate, and no luck there either.”

“You think it’s a bug in the operating system?”

“How long will it take to check?”

“The whole system? Months. Months and months. There’s a googolplex of bytes running this ship, maybe more,” Stu muttered, screwing his face into a dozen emotions simultaneously.

“Byrd and Painter both ran their systems in less than a day.”

“This isn’t looking for a break in electron or photon flow. This is a matter of functions. Computers have an operating system, and then programming, and then data, a user interface…”

“If you think the job is insurmountable, I’ll assign another person to the task.”

“No, no, no,” Watson said. “It’s not not-doable, but it’s not a twelve-hour job.”

 “I suggest, then, the sooner you get started the sooner you will finish.” Quixote clapped the man on the shoulder with a heavy claw and left him to his assignment. Xe stopped at the closest intercom on his way off deck four.

“Bridge.”

“Lieutenant May, will you be needing any assistance for the time being?”

“I’m just here to feed the dog.” Curiosity stirred in Quixote’s reptilian heart, but from the man’s tone of voice, he suspected that was a negative.

“Very well. I’m just a telecom away. Carry on.”

“Aye, Commander.”

þ

Cerebrus Astronomite powered up automatically when his energy cells were fully charged. He booted himself, and quickly came alive, realizing he was in his quarters, and he had a job to complete. If he were to function at optimum efficiency, he couldn’t continue to access information the way humans did. The interface wasn’t authorized, but he was certain that once Captain Jackson saw the jump in productivity, he would approve.

On his computer access device, he searched for ‘Hoyle state of carbon, 7.65 MeV energy.’

Some interesting subject files appeared to choose from:

• Chiral Effective Field Theory

• 36-body problem

• 1959: Caltech finds Hoyle state in emissions!

• JUGENE supercomputer 300 teraflops

This was enough to get him started on his research. He was made of the same elements as biological life forms. He would find the answers in the structure of the atomic nucleus. His calculations would explain the rates, and mechanisms, by which carbon transforms into other states, creating the elements needed for life.

But before that, he needed parts to create his interface, his umbilical, to Maria Mitchell. John Chin in the manufacturing room would have parts. He compiled a short list and took the order to be filled.

“What are you doing with all this stuff?” Mr. Chin asked. 

“I am creating an interface,” Cerebrus said plainly. 

“Where’s your requisition from the quartermaster?”

“I was unaware it was a requirement.”

“I’d do it for you, but I have priority one on the repair items. Keith and I are working double shifts to get this done ASAP.” Cerebrus turned his head and looked at each machine in the room, all running at maximum output.”

“I cannot have these?”

“Not now. The captain would have to sign off on anything for me to interrupt a top priority cycle. And it would also need Zoe’s approval so she can charge the materials to the right account.” Chin handed the data reader back to Cerebrus with a slap. “How’s your function since you came back online?”

“I’m working at peak efficiency. With these components, however, I could exceed that output.”

“In Astrometrics? Was there a data breach?”

“No. No. I refer to my reacquisition of information. These parts would allow me to construct an interface.” 

“John, we’re ready for two more,” came a voice over the intercom. 

“I can’t right now. But this is Captain Jackson’s ship. You shouldn’t make any hardware modifications without his approval.” Chin smiled, shrugged, and returned to his tasks, rushing to the far EBM to check on a temporary panel for the airlock project.

Cerebrus couldn’t express a frown, but the answer to his request was unacceptable. Contrary to John Chin’s statement, the Maria Mitchell was not owned by Captain Jackson. Without a doubt the ship belonged to the North American Space Agency of Earth. John Chin had made a mistake. Or he was wrong. Or he was intentionally deceitful with his response. Perhaps Chin was also intentionally deceitful when he had been shut down and rebooted, not to fix a malfunction.

In any case, he postulated, Chin was an unreliable human to depend on for help. Next most helpful would most likely be Jean Rougeau. That human had declared friendship between them. He followed Chin to the far end of the room.

“Where might I find Mr. Rougeau?” he asked the man point blank.

“Huh? I don’t know, ask Quixote. He’s the commander.” Before Cerebrus could ask the next question, Chin cut him off. “Xe’s in engineering, probably.”

Cerebrus left without telling Chin ‘thank you’ because the man hadn’t given him any certain information. No time when he’d get his parts, no firm location of the commander, and indeed had given him inaccurate, or incorrect, information. He’d have to improvise. That would require his neuromorphic network to create an algorithm with extensive “if, then” components. 

On his way to engineering, he set that task working in the background. No human could do that. And he wouldn’t accept that to be considered alive you had to be sentient. Surely plants, insects, and bacteria were not sentient, but were alive. Were they more entitled to respect than he, a thinking, cognizant being, simply because they were biological molecules?

He stepped into the engineering department and looked for Quixote. He hadn’t been in the engineering area often. The whole bay hummed with a low resonance of respect for the nuclear equation.

“Cerebrus, can I help you? I thought you were restoring your memory.”

“I have uploaded all data associated with astrophysics and helm operations, which combine to encompass navigation operations.”

“Good.”

“I am looking for Mr. Rougeau.”

“He’s not here.”

“Mr. Chin told me you would likely know where he is.”  The commander stepped to a computer terminal and called up the duty shift log. Xes claw helped the reptilian eyes focus on the lines, names with current times and assignments.

“Our roster is inaccurate, but at this time Mr. Rougeau is most probably asleep.”

“Thank you.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Where are you going? I don’t want you working on the repairs again, but I have some calibrations to do before we leave orbit. You can monitor the output.”

“Leave orbit?”

“Captain Jackson’s on the planet. When he’s back, we go.”

“Mr. Chin told me all crew were recalled. Is he in error?”

“It’s not an error. The captain is not exactly ‘crew’. He’s the exception. But everyone else has been recalled. Now give me some help over here.”

Cerebrus stepped to the console and read the names on the list. Indeed, Jackson, Rianya, and both replacement people were not aboard. Perhaps this was the open door he’d been looking for.