Текст книги "Midshipman's Hope"

Автор книги: Дэвид Файнток

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By the end of the second day I could stand myself no longer. During our rest period I forced my reluctant steps down the ladder to Level 3, to the Chiefs cabin near his engine room. I knocked. He opened the hatch, his jacket off, tie loose.

“Carry on,” I said quickly, before he could come to attention. He stepped aside for me to enter. I remained in the corridor. Now, especially, I had no right to be in his cabin.

“I’ve come to apologize.” My tone was stiff. “I’ve never had reason to think you wouldn’t carry out your duties. My remarks on the bridge were abominable.”

“You owe me no apology,” he said, his voice stony. “You gave your orders, as was your right.”

“Nevertheless I’m sorry. I insulted you. I know you won’t forgive me, but I want you to know I regret my words.” I turned and left abruptly, not wanting him to see my eyes tearing.

We made progress, but it was slow going. The crew continued to monitor ship’s systems manually. Over the next weeks I noticed an increase in the number of seamen sent to Captain’s Mast. Tempers flared as the crew’s irritability began to match my own. They too suffered from loss of sleep. Only the midshipmen seemed to thrive under the extra burden.

While the exacting labor continued, days stretching into weeks, Vax Holser stolidly carried out all the tasks I laid on his broad shoulders, without objection and, more importantly, without offense at my manner.

I grew to depend on him; when I wanted to be sure a difficult measurement was made and rechecked without complaint, it was Vax I called upon. Whatever he said to the other midshipmen in the privacy of the wardroom, it persuaded them to work with willing good humor, a feat of which I’d have been incapable.

Sandy and Alexi crawled around the cargo holds in their confining pressure suits for hours at a time, determining location and mass of the cargoes. Derek, when he wasn’t poring over his navigation texts or performing the strenuous exercises Vax required of him, obediently held measuring lines, copied figures, and made himself otherwise useful to the midshipmen.

“Captain to the bridge, please!” I was sacked out in my bunk in utter exhaustion when the call came. Never before had I been summoned from my cabin; after shaking my head in a hapless effort to clear it I took only seconds to scramble into my clothes and dive out the hatch, foreboding rushing my stride.

Alexi stood rigidly at attention. The Chief appeared angry.

Pilot Haynes paced back and forth, a holovid in his hand.

“What’s going on?” I demanded. I’d expected a gaping hole in the hull, if not worse.

“Mr. Tamarov,” spat the Pilot, “brought some funny measurements. They’re wrong; they don’t balance. They can’t.”

“Alexi, report.”

“Aye aye, sir. Thank you, sir. I was assigned to check gas exchange rates on the atmospheric recyclers. I took Recycler’s Mate Quezan to the recycler compartments, bringing along gas gauges as ordered. We tested the oxygen/carbon dioxide exchange, the nitrogen recycler, and the purifiers, sir. The exchange rates were lower than listed so I ordered Mr. Quezan to repeat each measurement. We got the same numbers again, sir.”

The Pilot. “I told you. He must have–”

“Let him finish.”

“I went to the ship’s library and got out the manufacturer’s specs. Their model numbers don’t jibe with the actual numbers on our units, but as far as I could tell the equivalent models in the book showed rates like we measured, not the rates Darla had in her banks, sir.” Alexi shifted uncomfortably before bringing himself back to attention at my glare.

I sat to think. Atmospheric recycler rates were predetermined: they were fixed parameters. Darla kept the atmosphere in balance by keying the machinery on and off in accordance with those rates. “Chief, talk about recycling, please.”

“Sir, the puter regulates our atmosphere. She turns on the oxy-carbo exchanger at set times, based on the rate the machine exchanges the atmosphere. Likewise the nitrogen and the other trace elements. If those rates were wrong we should be dead by now. The likely explanation is that Mr. Tamarov took bad measurements.”

Alexi’s face reddened.

The Chief added, “We called you before rechecking, because your standing orders were to be summoned the moment we found an inconsistency.”

“Sir, I didn’t foul up. Darla has another glit–”

I snarled, “Be silent!” Alexi knew better than to argue with the Chief. Still, his integrity was being questioned, and I could understand his indignation. “We’ll know soon enough.

Chief, you and Mr. Haynes run the test while Alexi and I watch.”

We trooped down to Level 3 and crowded into the recycler compartment. Alexi, his face pale, watched the Chief hook up the gauges, knowing he faced disaster if his report was inaccurate. The Pilot tightened both connections to the gauge.

He turned on the system. After a few minutes we took a reading. The actual CO 2 exchange rate was lower than the puter’s parameter.

Alexi closed his eyes, sagged in relief.

“Now the others.”

The Pilot transferred his gauges to the oxygen tubes. We waited while the machinery settled into operation. The oxygen rate was also lower than Darla’s parameter. So, we learned a moment later, was the nitrogen rate, but by a lesser amount.

We returned to the bridge in tense silence. “Chief, report tonight on why these discrepancies haven’t killed us. The rest of you, carry on. Alexi, just a moment.” When they left I came close to him. “Good man.” My voice was soft. “And, thanks.” I touched his shoulder. “Dismissed.”

He gave me an Academy parade salute and spun on his heel toward the hatch. From the worshipful look he made no effort to hide, I knew I had finally done something right.

The Chiefs report, delivered a few hours later, was brief.

The discrepancy in exchange rates hadn’t fouled our air because we were never at maximum utilization. Later in the voyage, after the last of our reserves of oxygen were fed into the system, the recyclers would go to full capacity to keep our atmosphere healthy. That’s when Darla’s glitch could have proved fatal.

She would assume the exchange rates were adequately renewing our atmosphere, while we slowly poisoned ourselves from excess CO 2 . Our sensors were supposed to detect any variations from normal atmosphere, but Darla would suppress their readings as faulty as long as the machines seemed to be operating properly.

Only our manual backups would have stood between us and asphyxiation. A crewman probably would have noticed-if he didn’t ignore the sensor rather than report it, to avoid having to tear down the whole system when he knew the puter was already keeping watch.

The next week we found seven more glitches, two of them involving the navigation system. Others seemed less important: misfigured stats for various compartments and the launch, or incorrect paint colors. Impatiently I waited for our recheck of the parameter list to be completed, so I would know how bad matters actually were.

Some of the more difficult calculations involved rechecking calibrations on the electronic gear, which required the help of crew work parties. We Defused, to allow crewmen to clamber around on the hull; during Fusion any object thrust outside the field surrounding the ship would cease to exist.

As they clumped about outside, our work parties sighted their primitive electronic instruments on distant stars, to provide an absolutely clean base for calibrations.

One evening there came a knock on my hatch. Apprehensive, I realized that except for Ricky with my breakfast tray, nobody had ever knocked on my hatch. Except in my dreams.

Chief McAndrews stood stolidly in the corridor, coming to attention when I opened. “As you were, Chief,” I said.

“What is it?”

“I’m here to own up, Captain.” He met my eye.

“Come in,” I said, turning away. He had no choice but to follow.

Uncomfortably, he cleared his throat. “Captain Seafort, I apologize for my foolishness, entering a protest in the Log.

You were right and I was dead wrong; I should have kept my mouth shut. I’ve been kicking myself for two weeks now. I was insubordinate. You’d think I’d been in the Navy long enough to know better.”

“You had every right to protest.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but like hell I did. You’re in charge and you knew what you were doing. I had no business playing sea lawyer. I’m ashamed.”

I sighed. “I was lucky, Chief.” He looked skeptical.

“Very well, we’ll trade apologies. Mine for yours. As long as you’re here, stay awhile and help me research that thing in the safe.”

“I really don’t think, I mean, after–”

“Stay.” I punched in the combination. Sometimes it felt good to pull rank.

17

The nightmares receded, but my loneliness remained. One evening after dinner I found myself descending the ladder to Level 2, wandering along the east corridor to Amanda Frowel’s cabin. I knocked hesitantly at her hatch. Inside, sounds emanated from a holovid.

She opened the hatch; abruptly we found ourselves eye to eye.

“What is it, Captain Seafort?” Her cool formality only made me feel more ill at ease.

“I hoped we could talk.”

She thought for a moment. “I can’t stop you from coming in, Captain, but I don’t want to talk with you.”

“I’m not going to force my way in, Amanda.”

“Why not? Force is your Navy’s first recourse.”

I sighed. It was difficult enough without that. “Can’t the incident be over? I wanted–I need somebody to talk to.”

Her voice hardened. “The incident will never be over, Captain. Not now, not as long as I live.”

“You’re that sure I was wrong?”

“I’m sure, as you should have been. I’d like to close my door, please.” She stared at my hand on the hatch until I removed it. The hatch closed firmly in my face. I remained there a moment, numb, before I turned and left. Not wanting to go back to the bridge, dreading the solitude of my cabin, I wandered along the corridor. Impulsively I took the ladder down to Level 3, with vague thoughts of visiting the engine room to hear the Chiefs reassuring voice.

As I rounded the Level 3 circumference corridor I heard laughter ahead. A soccer ball skittered around the bend.

Crewmen sometimes congregated outside the crew berths in the evening, kicking a ball back and forth. Doing so in the corridors was against regs but generally ignored. Without thinking I kicked it against a bulkhead, bouncing it back the way it had come. I followed.

“Go for it, Morrie! Pretend it’s Captain Kid’s head!” A laugh.

“Belay that, before he has you up on charges!” Another voice, jeering.

“TEN HUT!” Someone bellowed the command as I came into sight. The ball rolled to the bulkhead and rebounded gently toward me. I put my foot on it.

“Carry on.” The group relaxed from attention, but waited in mute hostility for me to leave. I shouldn’t have interrupted.

If I’d turned the other way in the circumference corridor, I could have reached the engine room without passing them.

“I used to play that once.” I wished someone would have the audacity to invite me, knew that no one would.

An awkward silence, before one of the men spoke politely.

“Is that so, Captain?”

“Back when,” I said, trailing off. “Carry on,” I repeated, walking past as quickly as dignity permitted. I heard no further sounds until I reached the engine room. Chief Me Andrews was below in the fusion shaft supervising a valve maintenance detail, so I retreated back to Level 1, this time taking the west corridor so as not to pass the crew berths.

Still restless, I ignored the bridge and continued down the corridor to the now-vacant lieutenants’ cabins and the wardroom. While I waited, hesitant to knock, Sandy flung open the hatch, smiling. At the sight of me, he took an involuntary step backward, his smile vanishing. He stiffened to attention. Alexi rolled off the bed and came to attention also.

Derek sat cross-legged on the deck with a pair of shoes in his lap, and three other pairs nearby. He put down polish and brush and stood awkwardly.

“Carry on, all of you.” Sandy and Alexi relaxed. Derek resumed polishing a boot. “How’re you joes doing?” I asked.

“Fine, sir.” I yearned to hear Alexi call me “Mr. Seafort,” as before.

“What’s Vax up to?” Anything, to make conversation.

“Mr. Holser went to the passenger lounge, sir.” Sandy’s tone was almost friendly in comparison with Alexi’s stiffness.

“What’s with the cadet?”

An uncomfortable pause. I’d violated the tradition that cadets were not noticed by officers. Sandy spoke. “Mr.

Holser didn’t approve of the way his shoes were shined. The cadet is practicing on ours.” Quite within the acceptable bounds of hazing.

“Very well.” I glanced around. The wardroom seemed small after my sojourn in the spacious Captain’s cabin, but I repressed an urge to order my old bunk made ready nonetheless.

Alexi’s eye strayed to his wrinkled blanket and darted elsewhere. “Don’t worry, Mr. Tamarov, this isn’t an inspection.” I owed him more than that, so I added, “I’m pleased with your conduct these days, Mr. Tamarov. With all of you, for that matter.”

“Thank you, sir.” Alexi spoke promptly, politely.

Even Derek might need encouragement. “You too, Mr.

Carr.”

His eyes rose quickly and searched my expression, perhaps to see if I mocked him. Apparently mollified, he said,”Thank you, sir.” His voice held a hint of gratitude.

Time to go. There would be no conversation, no exchange beyond the most casual pleasantries. “Carry on.” I opened the hatch.

“Thank you for visiting, sir,” Alexi blurted.

It was something.

“That’s the last of them.” I looked over the parameter list with its checkmarks and notations.

The Pilot nodded. “Yes, sir. Nine glitches in all, out of some fourteen hundred parameters.”

I shivered, thinking of the air exchangers. Darla could easily have killed us. “Very well, we’ll fix her tomorrow morning. You, me, and the Chief.” I took us all off the watch roster for the night; best that none of us be fatigued when we reviewed each other’s keyboard entries.

That evening I fought an urge to stop at the infirmary for another pill. Even if the Doctor was reluctant to give me a (rank, I could order one, and she’d have to obey. The knowledge made me secure enough to sleep like a baby.

When Ricky brought my breakfast I remarked, “You may take the oath as soon as we’re finished with repairs, Mr.

Fuentes.”

His eyes lit. A grin spread over his young, eager face.

“Wow, zarky! Thanks, Captain! Will that be soon?”

“Tomorrow you’ll be a cadet like Mr. Carr. I expect you to make officer in a month!”

He knew that was preposterous. “I can’t do it that fast, sir. But I’ll try awful hard. Maybe in a few months you’ll say I qualify.” He hesitated. “Does everybody have to cry, sir?”

I was puzzled. “What do you mean, Ricky?”

“Like Derek. When he goes to the supply locker by himself and cries. Will I have to do that?”

“No, I don’t think so. You’re too happy to cry.” My thoughts raced. “How do you know about Derek?”

“I saw him, sir, and heard it. I didn’t tell him that.”

“Don’t. That’s an order. Dismissed, Mr. Fuentes; go memorize the oath. If you can’t remember it I won’t sign you up.” “Aye aye, sir!” As he left the room his step was almost a bound. If only all personnel problems were as easy to solve.

The Chief, Pilot Haynes, and I sealed the bridge, put Darla on keyboard-only, removed the safeties we had reinstalled, and got to work. I typed each correction on the keyboard, and both the Chief and the Pilot checked before I entered it.

We had only nine parameters to delete and reenter, but it took over an hour. I had to be absolutely sure we didn’t make a mistake.

Finally, we were done. Just to be sure, I ran a new copy of input parameters and checked each of the items we had corrected. The proper figures were displayed on the holovid screen.

“What do you think, gentlemen? Are we ready to put her on-line?”

The Pilot and the Chief exchanged glances. “We’ve gone through every step by the book,” said Mr. Haynes. The Chief nodded.

“Very well.” Step by step we restored Darla, reactivating her antitampering mechanisms and safeties. Finally there was nothing left but to bring back her personality. I typed in, “Restore conversational overlays.”

“VERIFY CONVERSATIONAL OVERLAYS RESTORED.”

“Cancel alphanumeric response only.”

“IT’S ABOUT TIME! VERIFY ALPHANUMERIC RESPONSE CANCELED.”

I tapped, “Cancel screen display only. Restore voice response.”

“Verified, Captain.” Her friendly voice was a reunion with an old friend.

“Cancel keyboard entry only,” I typed. “Can you hear me, Darla?” I said.

“Of course I can hear you, Mr. Seafort. Why’d you put me to sleep?”

“Had to run some checks, Darla. Please run a self-test.”

“Aye aye, sir. Just a minute.” She was silent awhile. We waited. “I check out, Captain. All chips firing.”

“Whew.” My tension began to dissipate. “Thanks, Chief.

You too, Pilot. Well done.”

The Chief stood. “If we’re going to Fuse soon I need to finish my maintenance.”

“Very well. Dismissed, and thanks.” As he retreated, I had a thought. “Darla, what’s ship’s base mass?”

“215.6 standard units,” she said impatiently. “Why do you keep asking?” The Chief Engineer froze, a few steps from the hatch. The hairs rose on the back of my neck.

“Try again, Darla. Use the figure from input variables.”

“215.6 standard units.” Her tone had sharpened. “Anyway, mass isn’t a variable, it’s a fixed parameter.”

My glance was wild. The Pilot looked as if he’d seen a ghost. I swallowed. “What’s the CO 2 exchange rate, please?”

“Are you asking me, Captain? 38.9 liters. Look it up, it’s in the tables.”

The Chiefs eye met mine. I looked at the Pilot, then at the keyboard. He nodded.

I went to the console, tried to keep my voice level. “Keyboard entry only, Darla. Alphanumeric response, displayed on screen.”

We were in big trouble.

When we were sure Darla couldn’t hear us except through the keyboard, the Pilot, the Chief, and I conferred. Unthinkingly we huddled in the corner farthest from Darla.

“We changed the parameters, didn’t we? We all saw it.”

I needed the reassurance.

“And it took, Captain.” The Pilot. “I’ve got the new printout right here. See? We moved base mass from input parameter to variable and changed the default at the same time.”

I shivered. “What’s happening?”

“She’s glitched bad.” Chief McAndrews. “When she’s alive she can’t recognize the changes we made. It goes deeper than the data.”

“Can we fix her?”

The Pilot shook his head. “I’m not sure we could even find the problem.”

“Well, how does she store parameters?” The Chief.

“In a file,” said Haynes.

“What kind?”

I demanded, “Are you onto something?”

The Chief shrugged. “When we ask her to display variables, she just reads the contents of a file. Can we get below that, to look at the file structure?”

“We’re about to try,” I said.

Meticulously, we stripped Darla down once more. It seemed to get easier with practice. In an hour we had the puter opened to the level we’d previously reached.

Manual in lap, the Pilot began to search Darla’s memory banks for file directories. ASCII, hex, and decimal values filled the screen, in patterns that were gibberish to my untrained eye. Occasional words such as “EMOTION/OVERLAY”

or “VARIATION/PATTERN” appeared, indicating directory entries for those files.

The Pilot scoured the memory areas indicated by the manual. Finally, he called up two entries, “PARAMETER/INPUT”

and “VARIABLE/INPUT”. Translating the code that followed, he obtained the file sectors. He tapped in the coordinates.

It was a long file, over fourteen hundred entries. He screened each one and quickly moved to the next. The file entries were in English words: “ship length: 412.416 meters”. My attention wandered while we screened through endless data. Abruptly the screen displayed, “End of fiTS SHE’S GOT ON HER, JORY!”

“What the hell was that?” I asked, frightened.

The Pilot bit his lip. “Lord God. I don’t know.”

He tapped the keyboard. The screen flashed, “NOT BAD FOR A GROUNDSIDER, HUH?”

“Go back.”

The Pilot obediently thumbed backward past the two glitched entries.

“Shaft diameter: 4.836 meters. LOOK AT THE TI”

The Chief swore. I listened with respect, learning new combinations I might someday find useful. I said, “Run the three of them together.”

Pilot Haynes displayed the three sectors. “Shaft diameter 4.836 meters. LOOK AT THE TI end of fiTS SHE’S GOT ON HER, JORY! NOT BAD FOR A GROUNDSIDER, HUH?”

“Christ!” blurted the Pilot. “Look at that! They wrote over the end of file!”

“Explain,” I said sharply. “And don’t blaspheme.”

Pilot Haynes colored. “Sorry, sir. In NAVDOS, data is stored in files, usually in alphanumeric characters just like you’d write it. Puters operate so fast, the language interpreters are so sophisticated that there’s no need for compression. It makes it easier for Dosmen to run their checks if all they have to do is display and read the files.”

“So?”

“Files all end with an ‘end of file’ statement. Someone wrote those messages over an end marker. Darla stores the fixed parameters just before the variables. She had no way to tell one from the other. No wonder she’s glitched!”

“But who?” I asked. “And why?”

The Chief said angrily, “Between cruises a ship’s Log is relayed to the Dosmen at Luna Central. If there have been modifications, fixed parameters can change. The Dosmen burn the new stats into the Log, and relay it back. They must have been having fun that day.” The Chief’s face grew redder as he spoke.

“Naval Dosmen?” I asked in disbelief.

“Yes, those”–he spluttered–”those damned hackers!”

“Chief!” I said, scandalized. Ever since the Young Hackers’ League invaded the puter banks at U.N. Headquarters and wiped out half the world’s taxes, the term “hacker” was not used lightly.

“That’s what they are!” he snapped. “May Lord God Himself damn them for eternity!”

It was blasphemy unless he meant it literally, and I decided he did. “Amen,” I said, to make clear I interpreted it as a prayer. Then, “Check the nearby sectors. Copy any overwrites you find into the Log.”

“Aye aye, sir.” The Chief tapped his console, his face dark. “The bloody Dosmen were skylarking like raw cadets.

Data banks have dead space to write in, but they were careless and burned their garbage into a live file.”

And put my ship in peril.

My voice was tight. “When we get home I’ll file charges against them. If they’re acquitted, I do hereby swear by God’s Grace to call challenge against the offenders.” A foolish gesture, but I was too angry to care.

Dueling had been relegalized in the reforms of 2024, in an effort to control a growing epidemic of unlicensed homicides.

What made my gesture reckless was that I had no idea what martial skills the Dosmen had, and I was committed for my soul’s sake. Choice of weapons would be theirs.

The Chief looked at me in approval. “I’ll join you, sir. I hereby–”

“Be silent!” I rounded on him in fury. “I forbid you to swear an oath!”

“Aye aye, sir.” It was all he could say.

“I’m sorry, Chief. The responsibility’s mine. I have faster reaction time, anyway.”

“Yes, sir.” He glowered at me, annoyed but not angry.

Heavy and middle-aged, he might not survive a duel and knew it. However, the chances of dueling were remote. As soon as we presented our Log to Admiralty a Dosman named Jory would be unceremoniously hauled in for polygraph and drug questioning.

I frowned, as a new thought struck. “Are you telling me the life of everyone aboard depends on a simple file marker? Doesn’t Darla have redundancies? Safeguards?”

“Of course,” said the Pilot. “She’s constantly checking for internal inconsistencies.”

I let his remark hang unanswered. It was the Chief who finally stated the obvious. “Well, at some point she stopped.

Why?”

Pilot Haynes snarled, “Do I look like a Dosman? How am I supposed to guess–” “Belay that!” They subsided under my glare. “Pilot, can we fix the glitch?”

“Rewriting the end of file statement should do it.”

“I don’t think so.” The Chief.

“Why not?” The Pilot and I spoke as one.

“Because Darla didn’t spot the problem herself.” Chief McAndrews took in a deep breath, chewed his lip. “A puter applies math routines to numeric problems, and goes to fuzzy logic programs to decipher what we tell her. That’s how she translates your spoken questions into parameters she can dredge up from a file.”

“And?”

“It’s fuzzy logic that would tell her that base mass and adjusted mass should differ, and to accept the difference. She didn’t figure it out. Anyway, the parameters are certainly stored twice, at least, with backups. As Mr. Haynes said, her internal security checks would spot discrepancies.”

“And they didn’t.”

“Right. She isn’t reading the backups, and something’s skewing nine of her parameters. Without a Dosman we may never know why, but I suspect those damn–those bloody clowns corrupted her fuzzy logic programs, so Darla didn’t know when to apply logic, or when she had a problem. When to call for help.”

I stood to pace, found my knees strangely weak. “Can we cure her?”

The Chief Engineer’s voice was heavy. “If Darla is so far gone she can’t spot a corrupt file marker or warn us of internal contradictions, reprogramming her is way beyond any of us.”

Silence.

“I think he’s right, sir.” The Pilot.

I sat, gripped the armrests. “Complete power down and reboot?”

The Chief shook his head. “It would reset her personality overlays; she’d reassemble as an entirely different persona.

But if her programs are corrupt, it wouldn’t do any good. The glitches would still be within her.”

“We can order her to go to backups.”

“They’re copies of the master programs we received at Luna. They’d have the same glitches.”

I swore. Then, “Can we reassemble her as a limited computational device? Rewrite the end of file, block off her fuzzy logic instructions, use only her monitoring capabilities, work her strictly from the keyboard?” At least our exhausted crewmen could get some sleep.

They exchanged glances. “Possibly,” said the Pilot. “She wouldn’t be much of a puter when we were done.”

“Get started.” I stood, stretched. “Anything you’re not sure of, block out. I’ll be back by midnight watch, and we’ll activate her then.” I sealed the hatch behind me.

I went directly to my cabin, washed off the reek of fear.

As I put on a fresh shirt I shook my head, amazed at the good fortune that had alerted us. I took the printout from my pocket, slumped with it in my easy chair. So many glitches.

The base mass parameter was bad enough, the recycler rates even worse. And one of our backup astronav systems was haywire. It wouldn’t affect us this cruise, but Lord God help Hiberniaif she Defused near Vega and tried to pinpoint her location; that section of her star maps was unusable.

Other items didn’t seem to matter. If Darla miscalculated the length of the east ladder shaft, what difference did it make? And, so what if she misremembered the volume of the passenger mess, by a factor of ten? My eye skimmed the figures. Odd, that factor of ten. It applied to other skewed measurements. The mass of the ship’s launch, for example, and the volume of the passenger mess. I sat yawning. In their repairs, Pilot Haynes and the Chief would cut out most of Darla’s consciousness. As the Pilot said, Darla would be a poor excuse for a puter when we were done with her, but at least she’d be able-”Oh, Lord God!” I leapt from my chair. No time for my jacket. I slapped open the hatch, raced down the corridor.

“Pilot, Chief! Stop!” They couldn’t hear, of course. I skidded to a halt at the sealed bridge hatch, pounded on the control. “Let me in!”

The camera swiveled; in a moment the hatch slid open.

“Get away from the keyboard! Don’t touch her!”

“Aye aye, sir.” The Chief slid back his chair.

“Is she on-line?”

His tone showed his surprise at the thought he might disobey an order. “No, sir. You told us you’d activ–”

“Off the bridge, flank!” I gestured to the corridor.

Astonished, they followed me outside. I resealed the hatch, led the way to my cabin. Inside, we all took seats around the conference table.

I said, “I don’t think she has sensors here.”

They exchanged a quick glance, as if doubting my sanity.

My voice was hushed. “You see, she killed Captain Haag.

I don’t want her to find out.”

“Captain, are you sure you... we’ve been under a lot of stress lately and–”

I slapped the printout on the table. “It was in plain sight all the time. She misread the launch’s mass by a factor of ten. Who computed a course for the launch’s last run?”

The Chiefs eyes closed. For a moment he looked gray and tired. “Darla.”

The Pilot said, “But the launch puter handled its own power calls.”

“No.” Mr. McAndrews’s voice was somber. “Not for that last trip. If Darla tightbeamed her a course as Captain Haag ordered, she’d have overridden all other pertinent data as well. Gross weight with passengers and cargo. Power requirements.”

I said, “The launch puter was told it needed ten times as much thrust as it really did.” The cursed Dosmen. My lip curled. Who would visit the happy young woman in the holo, bringing news of Mr. Haag’s death? “We missed it in the official inquiry.” The Pilot was glum.

“Our focus was on the launch’s puter. We never imagined it could be Darla.”

I forced my mind back to the present. “Anyway, we can’t just restore her end of file marker. I don’t think we can use her at all.”

“I don’t under–”

“I’d shut her down completely before I’d sail with a puter who realized she killed her Captain. It would contradict her most fundamental instruction set. She’d go insane.” I didn’t know a lot about puters, but I recalled that much from puter class at Academy.

“Sir, you talk as if she’s alive. She’s just–”

“Remember Espania?’A week before they docked at Forester, her Captain had died in an airlock accident. The puter’s records showed the suit he donned had been pulled for repair; a negligent crewman had tossed it back in the rack with the others. The puter hadn’t noticed and blamed himself.

No one could dissuade him.

Two days out of Forester, under her new Captain, Espaniahad Fused.

Twelve years later, she was still missing.

We sat silent.

The Chief said, “Lord God help us if we have to sail to Hope Nation without a puter.”