Текст книги "Summon the Thunder"

Автор книги: Dayton Ward

Соавторы: Kevin Dilmore
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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

What we could do with that knowledge,he thought, not for the first time.

“We’ve only just gotten started on doing the same for samples found on Erilon,” Gek continued. “It takes a great deal of time, as you know. We’ve had to develop entirely new coding schemes just to keep track of it all. Still, we’ve made enough progress to make some early comparisons.” Adjusting several controls on the computer interface, Gek brought up another image on the viewer, which he aligned next to the original picture. “At first we thought we had a match to the Ravanar sample, but we also found a few new proteins, which we believe act as a sort of containment scheme designed to hold the base DNA.” Looking up at Xiong, he added, “Then, things get interesting.”

The image on the viewer shifted, and Gek pointed to the new graphic. “We found several distinct check sequences, which appear designed to protect against any errors during the replication process, and from that point the two samples are nothing alike.”

His eyes narrowing as he studied the data, Xiong said, “I’m not seeing anything here that might act to initiate the replication process.” Though more complex than the samples found on Ravanar, the Erilon specimen still seemed to be lacking key components.

“Despite the differences,” Gek continued, “it’s the same basic story with both specimens. The core genetic structures appear to be identical, but after that, nothing is the same.”

“Meaning?” Xiong asked.

Gek leaned back in his chair. “Only a fraction of the total information within any one sample appears to be necessary for the generation of life-forms, so why include the rest of it?” He shrugged in answer to his own question. “To me, it’s obvious. This genetic material was artificially engineered. The designers created a basic template—ostensibly for use in a virtually unlimited number of ways, most of which are far outside anything we might possibly imagine. What we’ve found on Ravanar and Erilon is but the merest scratching of the surface.”

Frowning at the melodramatic climax to the doctor’s report, Xiong shook his head. “So what you’re saying is that while we’ve learned a lot from Erilon…”

“We’ve posed more questions than we’ve managed to answer,” Gek replied, his expression grim.

Xiong nodded. “So, we keep digging,” he said. “We’ve plenty more to review, thanks to the Endeavour’s sensors and a few other items we brought back.” His voice trailed off, his mood darkening as he envisioned the body of his friend, Bohanon, lying atop a table in the station’s morgue and awaiting examination.

Looking to the computer interface’s chronometer display, the lieutenant released a tired sigh. “Unfortunately, you’ll have to carry on without me for a while. I’m scheduled for debriefing in half an hour.” According to orders received even before the Endeavourmade port, Xiong was to report to Commodore Reyes before meeting with a member of Captain Desai’s JAG staff. He was not looking forward to either meeting, knowing that secrecy would be the order of the day, as it always was when it came to his mission and how he interacted with almost everyone on the station. It was an aspect of his assignment which he loathed, even though he understood—to a degree—the necessity behind it.

Taking his leave of Dr. Gek and heading for the Vault’s exit, Xiong longed for the day when secrets, military or otherwise, would no longer be necessary, while also admitting that such a day was unlikely to come in his lifetime, if ever.

23

“I must admit, Your Excellency,” Sovik said as he entered the main meeting room of Jetanien’s suite of offices, “that serving in the Federation Diplomatic Corps never ceases to offer a conduit for…unique experiences.”

“Perhaps you would care to elaborate for us, Mr. Sovik?” Jetanien asked, indicating the rest of the meeting’s participants as they each took seats around the room’s polished conference table. Moving toward his glenget, the backless “chair” that allowed the Chelon to kneel in repose, he slurped heartily from his bowl of chilled Javathian oyster broth before setting it down on the table.

The Vulcan envoy remained expressionless. “I did not believe that a Tholian was capable of emitting sardonic laughter.” Pausing a beat, he punctuated his observation with a slight raising of his right eyebrow. “Until today.”

Jetanien allowed a smirk to cross his leathery features, but one that likely would be discerned more by his fellow beak-mouthed Chelons than his staff. “Well,” he said as he surveyed the room from his seat at the head of the table, “I’m reasonably certain that the Tholian to whom you refer…”

“Ambassador Sesrene,” Sovik clarified.

“Ah, yes, AmbassadorSesrene,” Jetanien amended, “would be pleased in his own way to know that the nuance of his inflection was not lost upon his audience, particularly in light of the fact that Vulcans seldom appreciate sarcasm.” He chuckled at that, which came out as a halting series of clicks and chirps.

Sovik offered nothing more as he took a seat next to Akeylah Karumé, the colorfully attired diplomatic envoy assigned to Ambassador Lugok of the station’s Klingon delegation.

Situated across from Karumé, who seemed to sneer over the rim of her steaming cup of coffee, was a tired-eyed Dietrich Meyer, whose apparent inability to manage himself with the Klingons recently cost him his posting as Lugok’s point of contact to Jetanien—to say nothing of nearly losing his life via the business end of the Klingon ambassador’s d’k tahg.

Seated next to Meyer was Anna Sandesjo. In contrast to Meyer’s slouched and disheveled appearance, the young aide sat ramrod straight in her chair, prepared as always to carry out her plethora of duties as Jetanien’s trusted senior attaché. Observing her, a woman whom he could appreciate as being physically appealing among humanoids, Jetanien unconsciously straightened himself on his chair. While he did not doubt that his presence carried with it an air of respect among his staff, he nevertheless suffered from an occasional bout of preoccupation as to how he appeared before them.

Part of being in control is looking in control,he reminded himself for perhaps the hundredth time this month.

“Despite whatever our estimable Tholian colleague may have communicated to Mr. Sovik,” Jetanien said as he regarded his staff, “we are preparing for him and his delegation to join us here with Ambassador Lugok as quickly as possible. While there are sure to be many specifics offered for superficial discussion, our intent is to root out the truth underlying their people’s escalating conflict here in the Taurus Reach, and then lead them to an accord that will settle this situation before it embroils us all.”

Meyer turned toward Sandesjo and mumbled something under his breath, which prompted barely a glance from the woman. Jetanien expected no less from Meyer, but nevertheless felt compelled not to let it pass without comment. “While I am one to appreciate your fumbled attempts at lightheartedness on occasion, Mr. Meyer, even you should be able to grasp the importance of timing to the art of comedy. This, sir, is hardly the time.”

Meyer cleared his throat and offered a sheepish expression. “Excuse me, Your Excellency.”

“I would excuse you from this meeting,” Jetanien said, “as well as from these particular proceedings and from the Diplomatic Corps completely, Mr. Meyer, were I not for some reason laboring under the impression that you have something to contribute to this process. Is my belief misplaced?”

His words seemed to have a sobering effect on Meyer, who widened his eyes and pushed himself up in his seat. “No, Your Excellency. It isn’t.”

“Then comport yourself accordingly,” Jetanien said before turning to Karumé. “May I presume, Ms. Karumé, that the invitation you extended to Ambassador Lugok was accepted with a dash more civility?”

“Um, as youmight define it?” Karumé asked. “Or as Lugok would?”

“I would settle for either,” Jetanien said as he reached for his broth.

Leaning back in her seat, the envoy nodded. “Then, yes, he very politely accepted our invitation to meet with the Tholians, and followed his acceptance with an offer to let me watch as he pulverized Sesrene into the ambassador’s ‘orthorhombic component structures,’ as he put it.” Shrugging, she added, “Frankly, I was a bit surprised to hear that Lugok knew that much about crystallography.”

Allowing a moment for Meyer’s bout of laughter in reaction to Karumé’s deadpan observation, Jetanien said, “I’d hardly recommend you start trusting the ambassador’s prowess in the sciences, though it does offer us some insight as to Ambassador Sesrene’s reticence to attend our summit, now, does it not?”

Turning in her seat so she could face him, Sandesjo replied, “That’s hardly surprising, Your Excellency. Given that our intelligence suggests the Tholians have been the aggressors in every recent confrontation with the Klingons we’ve been able to document, they’re likely itching for a fight. Further, their tactics of sneak attack and retreat are probably adding insult to injury. That’s certainly not what a Klingon would view as—”

“Honorable conduct,” Jetanien said, anticipating what his aide was about to say. “Yes, of course. One day soon, I shall undertake a comprehensive course of study as to what precisely constitutes Klingon honor. I assume such things are written down, on sacred parchment or stone tablets or some such thing. I further gather that such sacrosanct documents must be viewed by very few Klingons, given their propensity for redefining their notions of honor more often than I don fresh undergarments.”

A chorus of polite laughter echoed in the meeting room for a moment, before Meyer leaned forward in his chair and rested his elbows atop the conference table. “Isn’t it safe to say that their actions might enrage anyone, Anna, Klingon or not? Even with Lugok not at the table, what makes us think that Sesrene would be any more forthcoming to us as to the Tholians’ motives lately?”

It was Sovik who replied, “The Federation has held to its declaration that no armed action would be taken against the Tholian Assembly in the wake of the Bombay’s destruction. That should have earned us a modicum of trust with Ambassador Sesrene by now.” Clasping his hands before him and interlocking his fingers in what Jetanien recognized as a Vulcan meditative posture, the envoy added, “The Tholian delegation may be more inclined to a series of discussions apart from the Klingons. While more lengthy, such an approach may prove more fruitful.”

“Not acceptable,” Jetanien said, slapping his webbed manus on the table. “We do not have that kind of time, Mr. Sovik. With that in mind, how do we proceed in getting the ambassadors face to face?”

Sandesjo frowned. “Short of lying to them?”

Shrugging, the ambassador replied, “Let’s hold that strategy in reserve as a final option.” His remark brought a sly smile to his attaché’s face, a gesture that he returned as best he was able given his lack of malleable facial features.

“It’s more of a function of getting the Tholians here,” Karumé said. “As I mentioned, Lugok is more than interested in sitting down.”

His brow furrowing in obvious concern, Meyer asked, “But will he stay down?”

“That may depend,” she answered, looking into the envoy’s bleary eyes, “on whether you can keep your comments about his family to yourself.”

As Meyer opened his mouth to respond, Jetanien rose from his glenget. “It’s enough that I have to prepare myself for such bickering between the diplomatic delegations,” he said in a loud voice, bringing Karumé and Meyer to pause. “This summit is too important to the Federation to jeopardize with posturing and pettiness amongst my staff. Am I clear?”

What he did not say, however, and what burned within him was his heartfelt belief in the importance of the summit’s success to himself. This was an unprecedented opportunity which had been handed to him, and he was well aware of the necessity to craft a positive, lasting resolution that would benefit not only the Federation but also its interstellar neighbors for decades to come. He was acutely aware of the situation in which he found himself, and that he—as well as any decisions he made here—might very well be judged in historical texts and classrooms long after he had departed this mortal plane.

I came to the Diplomatic Corps to make a difference, to leave a legacy of some sort,he thought as he looked around the table to see each envoy nod in response to his harsh question. Nothing I have done until now is as vital as what I must do here. I must not fail, nor can I allow my staff to failme.

“Mr. Sovik,” Jetanien said after a moment and as he returned to his perch, his usual calm demeanor once again reflected in his voice, “we’ve each had our dealings with Ambassador Sesrene, and I’m sure you’ll agree that he’s a very guarded being. However, what is the one thing that even Sesrene cannot shield from us during our conversations with him?”

The Vulcan nodded, obviously understanding the track the conversation was taking. “His desire for information, Your Excellency, particularly pertaining to the motives of anyone with interests in the Taurus Reach.”

“Correct,” Jetanien said, capping the word with a few satisfied clicks before looking once more to the rest of his staff. “Therefore, as part of our effort to make this summit more enticing to its participants, we tell the Klingons that the Tholian delegation intends to offer an explanation for their aggressive strikes against the empire…”

Smiling, Karumé finished the thought for him. “While a well-placed suggestion to the Tholians that the Klingons are coming to the table with a willingness to reveal details of theirplans for the Reach just might prove tempting enough that they would attend if only to learn something new.”

“As they say,” added Meyer as he offered an approving nod, “you’re more likely to draw flies with honey than with vinegar.”

“Are you trying to make me hungry, Mr. Meyer?” Jetanien asked, releasing a deep basso laugh as Meyer returned a sour expression. “A lesson in appropriate comedic timing as well as in diplomacy. You’re doing quite well today.” To the rest of the group, he said, “Now, let us try again to persuade our respective delegations that there is something to be gained for all of us by sitting down and settling these matters of conflict. I expect reports from each of you as soon as you’ve succeeded in establishing a meeting time and agenda. Dismissed.”

Lingering as her colleagues rose from their seats and filed out of the room on their way to attend to their respective tasks, Sandesjo approached Jetanien as he finished his broth. “If I may, Your Excellency,” she said with a hint of a grin, “shall I presume that our final option turned out to be…?”

“The best choice?” Jetanien said, rising again to his feet. “No, you should not. I view this course of persuasion as less of a lie and more a case of wishful thinking. I’d hope that our guests, once we gather in an atmosphere of cooperation and goodwill, might rise above their reactive natures and come to an objective understanding that the Taurus Reach has room enough for us all.”

Frowning, Sandesjo replied, “That is a lofty expectation, Your Excellency.”

“Well, I should expect no less of them than I do of myself, yes?”

No, I should not. I will not risk what might be the foundation for a new chapter in the Taurus Reach– one written by me.

Hurrying from Jetanien’s offices toward the privacy of her own quarters, Sandesjo imagined that word of the impending summit meeting and the possibilities it afforded the Klingon Empire might make it back to Ambassador Lugok in time for him to exploit the situation in his favor.

If Lugok knows ahead of time that the Tholians are expecting to hear something about Klingon activity,she thought, he has the chance to play them directly into the empire’s hands. Now, I just need to get to Turag….

Her head bowed, her legs striding forward purposefully, she made her way down a corridor that emptied into a station for the tram tube that encircled Starbase 47’s terrestrial enclosure within its disk-shaped primary hull. As she came upon the crowd of passengers who had just exited the tram, her reverie was broken as she heard someone calling her name.

“Anna? Anna!Hello!”

She looked up to see the station’s archaeology and anthropology officer– What was his name again? Xiong, yes—tentatively waving with one hand over the scattering of people between them as she started to enter the tram.

“Hello!” she replied in greeting, trying to sound enthusiastic about seeing him. “I’m sorry, I’d wait for the next one, but I’m already late for an appointment,” she lied as she stepped across the threshold of the tram car.

“It’s okay,” Xiong said, lowering his hand as well as his gaze. “Maybe I’ll see you before the Endeavourships out again.”

TheEndeavour, she remembered, of course. Sandesjo was aware that Xiong had returned to the station with the starship the previous day, and she also had seen the notice regarding the memorial service for the vessel’s well-regarded captain as well as other Starfleet personnel, who had lost their lives while the ship was on assignment somewhere in the Gonmog Sector.

Sandesjo turned to face the young lieutenant from where she stood just inside the tram’s doors. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said, offering a small, wistful smile and arching her eyebrows suggestively as the doors began to close. Xiong perked up at that, and Sandesjo found herself considering—if only for a moment—any possible merits of seeing the young lieutenant in a social context.

Mildly attractive, for a human, I suppose,she decided, and while the lieutenant appeared to display a satisfactory level of fitness for a member of his species, she worried about his ability to withstand any sort of physical activity that might result from a more intimate encounter. Such bruising and broken bones would be difficult to explain to a superior officer, after all.

Not that it mattered, of course. For all the lieutenant’s qualities, he was simply not T’Prynn.

Taking a seat along the tram’s port-side bulkhead, Sandesjo closed her eyes and put the irksome if harmless Xiong out of her mind. Her commute home would take only a few moments, yet she seized the opportunity for a brief respite, knowing that her next task was to communicate this latest plan of Jetanien’s to Turag. It would be difficult to convince her handler of the merits of having Lugok meet with the Tholians, particularly given the current state of animosity that existed between them and the empire.

Still, if Lugok were to take care with regard to the information he provided Ambassador Sesrene, working with the High Council to offer what the Tholian delegation wanted to hear, a few carefully dropped hints and suggestions might lead the Tholian plaQta’right where the empire wanted them to go.

After that, matters could proceed toward satisfactory resolution in a much more straightforward manner.

And where would that leave her? Once her assignment here was complete, what would she do? Her initial feeling was that she would at last be able to return home—finally able to shed her human identity and once again embrace the comfort of her natural visage as well as the culture from which she had been separated for far too long.

But, what of T’Prynn?

A reckoning was coming, of that Sandesjo was certain. The bond she had forged with the alluring Vulcan who inhabited her waking thoughts as well as her dreams already was at odds with her duty. What would happen when her feelings for T’Prynn collided head-on with what she must do here, and a choice had to be made for which path she must follow?

It was a question Sandesjo found herself asking with increasing frequency, and to which she had as yet no satisfactory answer.

24

“Ever see anything quite like this?” Dr. Fisher asked.

“Well,” said Dr. Jabilo M’Benga as he stepped closer to the body of the nude Denobulan male lying atop the examination table, “I’ve seen stabbings, puncture wounds, and impalements, but nothing on this scale.” At the center of the Denobulan’s chest, where his thoracic cavity and its associated organs were once harbored, only a gaping, circular hole remained. The polished steel of the table was clearly visible on the other side of the ghastly wound.

“Me neither,” Fisher replied, reaching to the shelf set against the bulkhead above the examination table to retrieve a fresh pair of sterile surgical gloves. Working his right hand into the first of the gloves, he added, “And after fifty years out here, that’s saying something.”

The two doctors currently were the only living occupants in Starbase 47’s morgue, itself an unassuming area of the station’s four-level medical complex. The morgue was housed within the hospital’s lowest deck and situated near Vanguard’s core and well away from more active sections of the station; its physical placement, Fisher knew, owed much more to the glacial pace of change regarding the traditions of medicine than it did to the facility’s function. While twenty-third-century postmortem medical practices had advanced far beyond the need for such archaic conventions as refrigeration and chemical preservatives thanks to the development of stasis fields and other such useful technology, what still remained was the superstitions and general discomfort of the living that seemed to accompany the physical presence of the dead.

Keep the morgue in the basement,Fisher mused. Can’t be giving anyone the creeps now, can we?As if to hammer home the point, even the temperature in this room seemed to be several degrees cooler than in the rest of the hospital.

As he returned to the subject of his study, however, even Fisher had to agree that the sight of this ill-fated being might be enough to give anyone pause. The Denobulan, stripped of all garments that might have indicated his rank or station in life, lay before them blank-faced and motionless on the examination table extending from one of a bank of stasis units along the rear wall of the morgue.

“I thought you might want to be in on this one, Jabilo,” Fisher said, “given that a physician attached to starship duty might run across this sort of thing more often than those of us bound to a mere starbase.”

Fisher could not resist the sly remark, which he tempered with inflections of good-natured sarcasm in the hope of couching somewhat the underlying edge of bitterness behind it. He had devoted a good deal of his time these past months preparing M’Benga to assume the role of chief medical officer for Starbase 47, a task to which Fisher attended with the true desire of ensuring that the station—and his dear friend Diego Reyes—was left with a capable physician and surgeon upon his impending retirement.

That desire was dashed, however, when the younger doctor filed a request with Starfleet Medical to transfer to the next available physician’s posting on a starship. Fisher had swallowed his disappointment long enough to sign off on M’Benga’s request—but had since put little effort into restraining his words on those occasions when his displeasure at the idea made itself known.

If M’Benga was fazed at all by the jab, he did not show it. Guess his tour of duty in a Vulcan medical ward lends him the occasional stoicism,Fisher thought, or simple indifference to my situation, at least.

“According to his file,” M’Benga said, already down to business, “Mr. Bohanon here was part of the research team on Erilon. Was he involved in an accident?”

Fisher shook his head. “He was attacked. At least, that’s what I was told. By what, I don’t know.” Once more he directed his attention to the massive hole in the Denobulan’s chest, which had relieved the victim of his lungs, his heart, and a significant portion of his spine.

Reaching out to trace the outline of the wound with a gloved finger, M’Benga said, “It looks almost surgical in its precision. Whatever did this, it struck him with tremendous force.”

“If not for the strength of his rib cage,” Fisher replied, “whatever hit him likely would have just torn him in two.” Tapping a control set into the wall next to the table, he activated a spotlight, which he then directed to better illuminate the cavity. “See how it tapers inward from front to back? He was stabbed—skewered, really—by something that got wider as it went deeper.” Dipping his own gloved hand inside the wound, he gently probed its edges with his fingers. “Its sides are uniform and smooth, but it doesn’t seem to be from some sort of heat cauterization.”

“What else might cause that?” M’Benga asked.

Shrugging, Fisher replied, “Acid. An alien enzyme, maybe. It could simply be a function of his being transported almost exactly at the time of his injury, and the transporter buffer just…tidied things up.”

“You’re suggesting he was literally beamed right off the object that killed him?” M’Benga frowned at that suggestion. “If that was the case, then why wasn’t that object, or even a piece of it, brought up with him?”

Fisher nodded in approval at the observation. “Good question, but you’re assuming the deadly force here was inflicted by a physical object. If he was hit—for example—by a shaped antiproton beam, that might explain a few things.”

“But wouldn’t such an attack leave some residual energy that might be detected at the wound site?” M’Benga asked.

“Not if the stasis field that Mr. Bohanon entered on the Endeavourshortly after his death nullified any energy traces we might hope to find.” Fisher smiled, noting the younger physician’s knit brow as he considered that possibility. “It’s a tangled web we attempt to unweave in an autopsy, Dr. M’Benga, but we have one thing going for us.”

“And that is?”

“It’s pretty obvious how this poor fellow died, which means we get to spend more time trying to discover what was used to kill him.”

Fisher reached for a laser scalpel set atop a tray positioned next to the stasis bed. By applying a deft touch with the device, he carved away a sliver of muscle tissue from the surface area of the cavity and placed it in a waiting specimen dish. Handing the sample to M’Benga, he said, “Let’s see what a molecular scan can tell us.”

The younger doctor led the way across the room to a nearby workstation that offered an array of scanning equipment as well as a standard computer interface terminal. Fisher watched as M’Benga placed the tray under the sensor array and entered a series of instructions into the small keypad set into the worktable. The sample dish was bathed in a soft blue light, the forensic scanner sending its findings to the computer for further processing and analysis. Within seconds, data began to coalesce on the workstation’s display monitor.

And Fisher’s eyebrows rose.

“What the hell is that?” he asked as he studied the information being put out by the computer. “Anabolic activity? These cells are alive?” He leaned closer to better scrutinize the computer monitor, but the data displayed upon it did not change.

“That’s impossible,” M’Benga said. “Something must have contaminated the site.”

“They look like new metabolic pathways,” Fisher said. Watching the computer-enhanced image of the cell sample, the doctor could plainly see that some as-yet-unidentified substance had come into contact with the exposed areas of the open wound, and even now was slowly but surely working to break down the Denobulan’s cells, only to rearrange them into something resembling a crystalline structure. “Whatever it is, it’s mineralizing the muscle cells somehow.”

But what the hell for?

Beside him, M’Benga asked, “Could it be a form of viral infection native to Erilon that was arrested when the body was placed into stasis, and only became active once it was exposed to an atmosphere?”

“The Endeavour’s CMO scanned the body for infection, but found nothing,” Fisher replied.

M’Benga nodded toward the screen. “Shouldn’t he have found this?”

“He wasn’t allowed to autopsy the body,” Fisher said. Frowning as he said that, he nevertheless kept his thoughts on that decision, as well as who had made it and issued the appropriate orders, to himself. “Besides, if there was any kind of contamination, our autocontainment procedures would already have kicked in and sealed this place off. We’re not looking at any kind of contagion.” Turning away from the workstation and moving back to where Bohanon’s body still lay, he called over his shoulder, “Get a portable scanner.”

It took only a moment to survey the rest of the ghastly wound in the Denobulan’s chest and confirm Fisher’s suspicions. Holding the scanner up so that he could see its collected data, M’Benga said, “The same readings. Every exposed area of internal tissue is in the process of gradually being altered at the cellular level.”

“Putting him in stasis halted the process,” Fisher said. He indicated the control panel on M’Benga’s side of the table. “Jabilo, put him back in. I want to study this, and we need to preserve what we’ve got as long as we can.”

“Yes, Doctor,” M’Benga replied, pressing the control that retracted the examination table and its current occupant back into its storage drawer. The door hissed shut and a gentle hum exuded from the bulkhead as the small chamber’s stasis field activated.

“Have you detected a rate of progress?” he asked as he rejoined Fisher at the computer workstation.

Pointing to the monitor, Fisher replied, “Already plotting one out.” The screen displayed a small graph inset atop the main image of the ongoing cellular metamorphosis. “Not that it’s going to help us much. The process is tapering off. At this rate, it’ll neutralize completely before it extends more than a millimeter or two into the surrounding tissue.”

“The process might need more of its catalyst in order to continue,” M’Benga said. “Maybe something native to the planet?”

Fisher offered a small grunt of affirmation. “Could be, but maybe all it needs is more living tissue.” Turning back to the workstation, he began to key in a series of instructions. “We’ve got everything we need to try a computer model. Let’s see what kind of luck we have with that.”