SIXTEEN

“What was discussed with Vernon?” General Benito asked as soon as the three enlisted men were gathered.

“Simple greetings,” Palencia answered. “He was interested in why so many better class were assigned to the 143rd.”

“And your answer?” Benito asked.

“That it was our first opportunity of space faring and that persons who were likely to assume higher level positions in later life had been chosen,” the EM answered, shrugging. “He mentioned the crass theory that to be a good officer requires experience as an enlisted man and I did not dissuade him. He is new rich. Very unsubtle and without class.”

“When I want an opinion from you I’ll squeeze your head like a zit,” the General said. “Did he give you any indication that he is aware of the issues with regard to EM Parker?”

“No, sir,” Palencia said.

“Do we have any better understanding of their relationship?”

“I spoke, briefly, with CM1 Glass when Mister Vernon entered and immediately approached her,” CM Benito said. “He was as unaware of any relationship, prior to this, as EM Parker has maintained.”

“It is looking increasingly like a sham of some sort,” the General said. “That is the only rational explanation. Continue to circulate. Keep your mouths shut and your ears open. Palencia, you are to sit at the meeting tomorrow. You are going to be with the Navy contingent. Again, keep your mouth closed and your ears open.”

“Yes, sir,” Palencia said.

“I can’t believe they have enlisted men at this thing,” the General said, shaking his head. “Dinner follows the reception. Do not embarrass us by getting drunk and stupid. Follow orders and report each evening to your respective father.”

“Yes, sir,” Palencia said.

“Permission to speak to my father now, my General,” Velasquez said.

“Why?”

“He’s my father, my General?” Velasquez said. He wasn’t about to say that he felt the General was wrong in a very big way.

“And very busy even if he is just chatting,” the General said. “Just circulate. You all should be carrying the trays like monkeys.”

 

* * *

 

It was late and all that Velasquez wanted to do was get this uncomfortable uniform off and go to bed. But duty was beginning to be a strange but comfortable burden.

“Papa, it is Diego.”

“It is late, son, get some sleep.”

“I would but there is something I need to discuss with you. It is in fact important. At least I believe so.”

“Then come to my quarters.”

“I am down the hall. The doors are locked.”

The security door opened and Diego walked down the corridor to his father’s compartment.

“Not the most fabulous accommodations, eh,” his father said, gesturing around.

The compartment was about the size of the one Diego shared with Benito and Palencia. Which meant small. They could barely fit themselves and their gear in it. But that was to be expected. They were the lowest of the low.

Compared to what an Under Secretary would normally occupy at a major conference, it was a box.

“The Ambassador’s is not much larger.”

“More insults?” Diego asked.

“We do not think so,” Dr. Velasquez answered. “They are the best quarters on the fabber. That people work for years in these conditions…”

“Six hours a day in suits, Papa,” Diego said.

“That is simply…”

“Necessary,” Velasquez said. “Father, this is not what I have come to talk about. But perhaps peripherally. It is about the relationship between Mister Vernon and EM Parker.”

“A sham,” Velasquez said. “We have figured that out.”

“I must, respectfully, disagree, Father.”

“On what basis?” Dr. Velasquez asked.

“On having spent six hours a day, in suits, working on a boat with EM Parker, Father,” Diego said, chuckling. “I will not say that there is not more going on here. There is. And it involves Parker. But her relationship with Vernon is very real. At least on his part. Perhaps he is attracted by her looks but I think it is more complex than that. I think it is…cultural.”

“Go ahead,” Dr. Velasquez said, leaning back on his bunk. “Since it’s my degree, why don’t you lecture?”

“Yes, Papa, that is why I think I am right,” Diego said. “Papa, first you must consider the situation of Tyler Vernon. He is notoriously reclusive. He has had any number of opportunities to meet with persons of high estate. He eschews them.”

“Avoids them like the plague,” Dr. Velasquez said. “Go on.”

“He seems to mostly avoid people,” Diego said. “He does not seem to mind them, but he is perfectly comfortable, apparently, alone. He does not even have a particular group of protectors or handlers. He has no personal aide but AIs.”

“That has been mentioned as being a possible issue with his mental health,” Velasquez said.

“I don’t think that is the issue, Papa, sorry,” Diego said. “Vernon simply is a… We say that we think about people’s other culture, but we do not. We still emotionally think of our culture. Our own lives. That he has to… Maintain status. And that requires that he interact. Make deals. Make sure his children get the right schools, the right deals, the right spouses…”

“Yes,” Dr. Velasquez said.

“First, he has none of those issues,” Diego said. “He has become as hyper-powerful in the realm of business as, sorry, the United States is in war. In politics as well. Why else are you here. It is not about the Myrmidons.”

“Why, exactly, we are here is not your concern,” Dr. Velasquez said.

“But my point is made,” Diego said. “He simply does not have to play those roles, those…games.”

“Recognized,” Dr. Velasquez said, then shook his head. “Sorry, that was an automatic response. You are right. And it will require much thought. Why is he here? Wait, why is he really here?”

“You were working on his agenda being placating our group of the Alliance for the problems of the Myrmidons,” Diego said, smiling. “To help us save face. Perhaps to polish some alliances. You now realize that he cares less about that than a stray cat in Santiago?”

“You are becoming decidedly subtle, young man,” Dr. Velasquez said. “I’m proud.”

“Strangely, I’m a bit troubled,” Diego said. “Because the more I work with Parker, who I have come to respect if not like, the more I am troubled. And that cuts to the other part of the relationship. Have you ever really paid attention to Vernon’s relationships with women?”

“What relationships?” Dr. Velasquez said. “According to our intelligence he has passed up the opportunity, repeatedly, with both women and men. It is assumed he is heterosexual trended asexual.”

“Yet, I believe he genuinely likes Parker,” Diego said. “But not because she is female, per se. I think that it is because, somehow, he sees in her his culture.”

“He is the richest man in the world,” Dr. Velasquez said with a snort. “She is not his culture.”

“He is that almost purely American form of self-made rich,” Diego said. “The sort that is not a social climber. They simply wish to be wealthy and powerful and have no interest in taking on the views or attitudes of higher class culture. Look at his deep background. Raised in a suburb in the conservative area of his country. And his high school record indicates he was what Americans term a ‘geek.’ To the extent there is a sexual component to this relationship, Parker would have been a high status girlfriend when he was growing up. She was a cheerleader.”

“How could we miss that,” Dr. Velasquez said, shading his eyes with his hands.

“Furthermore, they are of similar cultural background,” Diego continued. “How many people does he meet on a regular basis from similar cultural background who are still close enough to it that they…echo it. Most of the time when he meets with military they are admirals whose culture, no matter where they come from, is simply Navy at this point. Parker is perhaps the only person he’s met in a very long time that he can really connect with. I state that it is a real relationship. One of friendship. And the friendship is deeply steeped in their mutual culture. About that I am less certain of the meaning. Parker, herself, warned me of some trap there obliquely. ‘You don’t understand friendship.’ ”

“Which is why she is included in the meeting,” Dr. Velasquez said. “She is a touch stone.”

“Again, disagree, Papa,” Diego said.

“If you keep being right and everyone else wrong it will go hard with you,” Dr. Velasquez said, smiling. “Why?”

“Although Tyler could easily pull strings to get Parker reassigned to the Troy, where he makes his base, he did not. Yet he pulled those strings to get her assigned to this meeting. Seriously, Papa, do you think that he felt he needed a touch stone for this meeting? He meets with the President of the United States when he, Tyler Vernon, bothers to open up his schedule. I’m sorry but…”

“The Foreign Minister of Chile is not of the same order,” Dr. Velasquez said. “And when I present these thoughts to the minister I will have to think hard how to put it delicately.”

“Last point, Papa.”

“You’ve been thinking.”

“You know I’m a thinker, Papa,” Diego said, smiling. “This is the thought. We have established that at a certain level Tyler Vernon’s innate psychology and culture have some resemblance to EM Parker.”

“I will take that as a given for the discussion,” Dr. Velasquez said. “I am still assimilating it.”

“Vastly different conditions,” Diego said. “But similar world-view. Now, Papa, what does that tell you?”

“It tells me it is late, Diego.”

“How many complaints have you generated about EM Parker, Papa?”

“Many. She is simply imposs…” Dr. Velasquez said then grimaced. “Oh, no.”

“It is not the problem of the complaints that you need concentrate on, Papa,” Diego said. “Well, those too. Because you are having to deal with a tremendously powerful person who has the same view of how the universe should work as that lowly EM you have been repeatedly blasting. For, at base, refusing to change her world-view to suit your own. Which means that Tyler is going to have the same absolute stubbornness. And infinitely more power.”

“Now I’m never going to get to sleep!”

“Thank the Virgin Mother I can. Your problem now. Good night, Papa.”

 

* * *

 

“AT LEAST I CAN TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A WARRANTY MALFUNCTION AND SLOPPY MAINTENANCE!”

“And now that we’ve gotten all that out,” Tyler said, holding up his hands. “We’re going to dial it down…”

“IF YOU THINK THAT…” Dr. Barreiro shouted.

“And if the Foreign Minister would kindly refrain from antagonizing the AI that controls our air and gravity…”

“If you think that…” Granadica said, snarled.

“Whose core I will pull if she doesn’t dial it down…” Tyler said. “And she can spend the rest of the meeting as a small squeaky box on the table.” He paused and looked around. “And now all the colloidals can take some deep cleansing breaths… In through the nose, out through the mouth while the AI runs some soothing checks on her system while saying ‘Oooommmm’…”

“I am in cycle again, Mister Vernon,” Granadica said.

“I am…in cycle as well,” Dr. Barreiro said. “But I will state that the government of Argentina will have no further imputations cast against its citizens who are members of the Alliance Navy…”

“Well, if you’d…!”

“And we’re stopping again!” Tyler said raising his hands again. “Because every second that passes I am getting older and death’s mighty hand collects us all in its time. And we are drifting gently away from the negatives…away from the negatives… And… Good. And now we’re going to talk as friends with an issue we must all resolve to repair. Parker.”

“Sir?”

During one of the battles around Troy, Parker and Thermal had ended up in a shuttle working the scrapyard when a Rangora fleet came through the gate. Dozens of battleships, lasers and missiles flying in every direction and all she could do was sit in the shade of a piece of rubble and hope nobody noticed.

Being in the meeting had so far felt very much like that clash of titans. Except that during the battle, since they were powered down, she couldn’t see what was happening. Here she could watch in terror.

Now everyone was looking at her. That didn’t make it easier.

“Can you, without imputing false actions or lack thereof of any person, colloidal or otherwise, living or dead who might or might not exist somewhere in this universe, possibly sort out what faults are due to potentially questionable manufacture by some group or system that may remain nameless versus faults that may or may not be due to some potential possible or variable form of maintenance?”

“Sirrr?”

“Which ones are Granadica and which ones are sloppy maintenance?” Tyler said.

“Mister Vernon, that is…”

“Damnit, Tyler, I thought you were…”

“STOP!” Tyler said. “I was translating. It’s cultural. The actual words intended should be substituted for the previous question in everyone’s mind. Parker. Which are which?”

“Uh, sir…” Parker said.

“Yes, or no?”

“Yes, sir,” Parker said, gulping. “It’s pretty easy, really. The Granadica ones don’t kill you.”

“Heh,” Barnett said. “That’s a good way of putting it.”

“What?” Dr. Barreiro said. “Are you suggesting we are deliberately sabotaging…”

“That’s not what she said or meant, Foreign Minister,” Tyler said. “Please don’t play that game. I don’t have time or interest. Dana, what do you mean exactly?”

“I’m having a hard time explaining, sir…” Dana said, looking around at “her” people.

“We’ve noted that as well.” Thomas Silver was the Deputy Chief of Special Projects for the Wolf System. He was an orbital engineer with, at this point, three years experience working on all the various projects that cropped up in Wolf. Unlike the Night Wolves he wasn’t a prototyper, just the “odd job” expert. He also, not coincidentally, was Vernon’s son-in-law. “The faults that can be directly attributed to manufacturing defects are invariably non-lethal by direct form. Which is…”

“Impossible,” Chief Barnett said. “Which is what everyone at the ground level has been saying.”

“And it’s a word that hasn’t been used a lot,” Tyler said. “Define. Dana? Thermal?”

“Ministers,” Thermal said, leaning over and looking at the South Americans. “There are exactly no frills on a Myrmidon. I think you might have noticed that on the way up. Every. Single. System. Has to work perfectly or people die. That is what is impossible about the faults.”

“People keep saying ‘random,’ ” Dana interjected. “They’re not random!”

“They are as close to statistically perfectly random as you can get,” Silver pointed out.

“No, they’re not,” Thermal replied. “They are non-lethal. That, right there, proves they are non-random. Ministers,” he said again. “When you were flying up here, did you think the ride was smooth?”

“Much smoother than an aircraft,” Dr. Werden said.

“We were accelerating, most of the time, at a speed that would make most fighter pilots pass out,” Captain DiNote said.

“We were?” Dr. Barreiro said.

“Absolutely,” Thermal said. “Most of the time we were pulling ten gravities. During turns we were pulling upwards of thirty. And you didn’t feel a thing, did you?”

“No,” Dr. Barreiro said.

“This part of the discussion is one of the reasons I required that we use Myrmidons,” Tyler said.

“There are seventy-two gravity plates in the main cargo compartment that are why you didn’t feel anything,” the Engineer’s Mate said. “They control the inertial condition on the ship. Every single one is very difficult to manufacture. Every single one has to be perfect. Every single one has to be in tune. Or you would have been splattered into red goo during the ride. It’s one of the reasons we kept asking for the engineers, your sons, to return to their stations. Among the thousand other jobs they have in flight is ensuring that the inertial control systems remain working.”

“I…didn’t know that about shuttles,” Dr. Werden said, gulping slightly. “I have ridden shuttles many times.”

“Civilian shuttles,” Tyler interjected. “Columbias. They don’t have the acceleration of a Myrmidon. That was why Comet’s shuttle was dispatched during the First Battle of Troy to pick up those passengers. It had a much higher acceleration than a Columbia. They can’t make a shuttle using ‘all earth’ technology that can do what a Myrmidon does.”

“My point is that if one of those is out of sync, then it’s a disaster,” Thermal said. “There is no way to have one that’s just a teensy bit wrong. They either work or they don’t.”

“So explain Thirty-Four?” Dana said.

“That’s it, you can’t,” Thermal replied, leaning back and crossing his arms. “Nobody can.”

“Thirty-Four?” Dr. Werden said.

“We had a shuttle,” Barnett replied, shaking her head. “It had a fault in the inertia we didn’t even notice. Passed every check. Until we got Marines onboard.”

“What was wrong with it?” Dr. Werden asked.

“Imagine…” Barnett said, shaking her head. “Imagine a thousand little fingers up inside your guts, gennntly massaging them.”

“Oh,” Dr. Barreiro said, grabbing his stomach and crossing his legs. “Oh…”

“Oh, yeah,” Barnett said, grinning. “Which was what we heard from the Marine in the single seat it effected as soon as we hit a particular acceleration curve. Well, that and screaming. It’s hard to get out of those seats fast but he set a record. What should have happened is…what Thermal said. He should have been red goo. Instead he started screaming and hopping around like a madman.”

“The Marines thought we did it on purpose,” Captain DiNote said. “That it was a practical joke. We never figured out how it worked. We ended up pulling every part of the control runs and power for the plate, and the plate, of course, until we could get it in spec.”

“I hope you charged us for it,” Tyler said.

“Oh, we did,” Admiral Duvall said. “Bet on that.”

“Everyone was stumped,” Thermal said. “Even our engineering officer, who has a masters in this stuff, couldn’t figure out how to even replicate it. We tried because, among other things, it would have made a great…” He stopped, coughed and flushed red.

“Potential breakthrough in gravitics,” Barnett finished for him then coughed.

“Ah, yes,” Dr. Barreiro said, smiling.

“We never got that, specifically,” Thomas said.

“Well, you don’t,” Barnett said. “You get ‘intermittent fault, grav system nine. Parts replaced until fault rectified.’ There’s no box for ‘really really weird fault that looks like a practical joke.’ ”

“How would you do that?” Admiral Duvall said, musingly. “I mean, I can see it in general, but the equations are…”

“Impossible,” Thermal said. “But while that’s an extreme example, most of the faults have something like that in common. They don’t kill anyone and it’s nearly impossible to have a fault that doesn’t kill anyone on a Myrmidon!”

“Are they…unnecessarily deadly?” Dr. Barreiro asked. “The shuttles, that is?”

“I have to answer that,” Admiral Benito said. “No. This is the essential problem of military equipment. If there is some…slack somewhere then you are doing things wrong. Everything must be the absolute minimum to do the maximum. As much power as you can fit in as small a space as possible. The fact that there is so little slack tells me something I had wondered which is whether the Myrmidons were a good design.”

“I’m still not too crazy about the main power system,” Barnett said. “I’d like a little redundancy.”

“Something we’re looking at,” Silver said. “And we’d noticed the general non-lethality of problems. For that matter, most of them don’t truly deadline the boat especially if they’re caught early. And it is one of the theories having to do with why it crops up in grapnels so much. They are somewhat peripheral to survival.”

“Then why is the 143rd having so many accidents!” Dr. Barreiro shouted. “We have lost lives!”

The Apollo and Norte Alliance members stopped and took an almost simultaneous breath then settled back into their seats.

“Oh, my God!” Dana blurted then cringed. She stared across the table at Captain DiNote in terror.

“Engineer’s Mate Parker is unused to meetings of this magnitude,” Tyler said, leaning back. “She has had an insight. She is, however, aware that sharing that insight would cause difficulties.”

“Because she is going to say that the problem of the 143rd is due to our own negligence,” Dr. Palencia snarled. “We are well aware of her opinions.”

Tyler paused and looked thoughtfully at him for a moment, cocking his head to the side.

“I think everyone from Apollo and the 142nd had that shared opinion when the Foreign Minister of Argentina made his outburst, Under Minster for Interstellar Affairs,” Tyler said, mildly. “However, I was watching Parker and she managed to be the sole of tact. Which means that whatever insight she may have is either peripheral to that position or an extension thereof. Since we are trying to get to the bottom of what is going on, such insights are valuable. I am personally interested in the insight. I would request of the South American delegation that any ire they may have towards Parker for her insight be directed at myself or Admiral Duvall who I am going to request order Parker to share the insight. Admiral?”

“Engineering Mate?” Duvall said. “The nature of your insight?”

Dana gulped for a minute then grimaced, angrily.

“It’s a Johannsen’s worm.”

“What?” Granadica shouted. “I’ve been checked for every virus, worm and Trojan known to man or Glatun!”

“Granadica,” Tyler said. “Yell at me or the Admiral, please. Explain, Parker?”

“I was looking at Mut… Coxswain’s Mate Glass,” Dana said, grimacing. “And I kept thinking ‘Blond, blond, blond’ and I couldn’t figure out why.”

“I am…blond?” Mutant said, smiling slightly.

“The actual Johannsen’s worm,” Admiral Duvall said, putting her hands over her eyes. “From the mouths of babes.”

“I still don’t understand,” Dr. Barreiro said.

“Don’t you?” Tyler said, turning the Minister’s left wrist upwards so that the faint scar carried by virtually every member of his generation could be seen. “The Horvath, those ever to be damned squids, gave those vile worms to us. To see who would care for themselves, and their children, enough to clean a simple wound. Put some antiseptic on it, bandage it, and you survived. Left untreated, you died. Simple, effective and permanent.”

“So you are saying that the proof we are having fatal accidents due to negligence is this… Whatever this is?” Dr. Barreiro said.

“Granadica?” Tyler said.

“Your insight…meets all logic tests,” Granadica said. “And neither I nor any of the cyberneticists have found it.”

“It is the ghost in the machine,” Tyler said, grinning.

“This is not funny,” Dr. Werden said. “I lost sons of friends in those crashes.”

“Would you care for me to list the number of people I have lost in my life, Herr Doctor?” Tyler said, still smiling thinly. He leaned back, reached into his suit and pulled out a thin cigar. “South America was, except for the plagues, relatively untouched by the Horvath and the Rangora. Brazil lost Rio.” Lit it. “Santiago, Buenos Aires, were never touched. So if you’d care to count bodies, we can do that all day. My mother for one. Friends and coworkers by the dozens. I still don’t know where this is coming from but what it is, what it means, is absolutely clear. It is a test. A test to see if the users are worthy of space. And we didn’t put it there. We can’t even find it.”

“It has to be hidden really deep in my programming,” Granadica said, in a very small voice. “Now that I realize what’s going on, I’m looking for it. And not finding it. I wasn’t even aware of it and now that I am aware of it, I’m finding deliberate logic blocks against seeing it. I may be able to backtrack to it that way…”

“I’m not sure we should pull it,” Tyler said, puffing.

“What?” “Sir, I think you need to…” “You would kill our sons…?”

“IT’S A TEST!” Tyler shouted. “Binary solution set! Do you have enough sense to come in out of the vacuum! Do you have enough sense to make sure that the boat you are going to fly works! I rode here on boats that your sons, Foreign Minister, maintained! Comet, do you do every single repair in every single boat?”

“Sir, I haven’t done an actual repair since I got there,” Parker replied. “Or a first test. All I do is spot check the work of my men. Sir!”

“Your son, Doctor Palencia, ensured that the boat I rode, was properly prepared to survive the rigors of space, of combat,” Tyler said, stabbing his cigar at the Under Minister. “I, every one of us, put our lives in your son’s hands. Not the famous Comet Parker! A monkey can drive one of these things! Certainly from Earth to Granadica. It takes a very good mechanic to keep them operating!” He puffed on his cigar furiously. “I think we ought to install the same ‘fault’ in ALL our fabbers!”

“Okay, Dad, you did not say that,” Thomas said, putting his fingers in his ears.

“We can’t even find it,” Tyler said. “We assuredly can’t replicate it. Useless threat. But the point remains. If you are careful enough to survive space, you do the checks. If you don’t do the checks, especially the initial ones, the faults cascade until the boats are definitely unsurvivable. I wasn’t sure about it until we got them,” he said, pointing the cigar at the cluster of spacemen, “into the equation and started talking about the nature of the actual faults. Palencia. Engineer’s Mate Palencia to be exact. What do you think?”

“Your logic is, as the AI said, unassailable,” Palencia said, shrugging.

“So where does that logic lead?” Tyler mused. “You may not believe it but we didn’t put it there. You can probably believe that we don’t have the knowledge to put it there. We don’t understand pseudo gravity well enough.”

“Are you going to remove it?” Dr. Barreiro asked.

“Yes,” Tyler said. “At one level it’s elegant. It tests for readiness to be a spacefaring species because space is a very unforgiving place. However, it’s not something that we can afford. We’re in a war. We need as much efficiency as we can maintain. Just the spares are an issue.”

“Agreed,” Admiral Duvall said.

“So where did it come from?” Tyler said. “Gorku? Onderil?”

“I have to admit that the logic blocks are still cropping up,” Granadica said. “I’m having a hard time even thinking about it.”

“I could hypercom call Athena,” Tyler said. “But why would a species embed that in a fabber. Any fabber. Although, Granadica, I have to be a bit insulting.”

“Go ahead,” Granadica said. “I’m feeling about as insulted as it’s possible to be. This is my body we’re talking about. I’m brutal about quality control. This is…rape!”

“The slight insult,” Tyler said, “is that now I think I know why I got you cheap.”

“Huh,” Granadica said. “You think it was Gorku?”

Tyler was one of the few people in the solar system aware that the Glatun magnate and member of the Council of Benefactors, had attempted to suborn Earth’s defenses through deeply embedded programming in the Glatun supplied AIs. Those they’d caught.

“Oh, I think it’s possible,” Tyler said. “That he knew at least. Not that he did it.”

“You think it was earlier?” Granadica said. “I mean… I’m old.”

“You worked for Onderil,” Tyler said. “How long?”

“Sixty awful, awful, years,” Granadica said.

“Where’d you start?” Tyler asked.

“Gamon shipyards,” Granadica said with a wistful note. “In your year of Thirteen Ninety-Three. I was immediately set to work on building explorer ships. They were…beautiful. Nearly the size of an assault vector but devoted purely to peaceful exploration… Okay, they mounted a lot of weapons but sometimes the natives were hostile…”

“How long?” Tyler asked.

“Two hundred and thirty-five years,” Granadica said, lovingly. “Hundreds of ships. Freighters, cruisers, explorers, you name it. Even yachts. I’ve got some great big yacht designs. They’re outdated but I could do an upgrade easy en…”

“Next?”

“Kedil Corporation,” Granadica said. “Dinnuth yards. Pure freighters. The exploration had discovered the Ogut and Barchi. Ogut weren’t space faring but they had a pretty developed culture. Good trade.”

“How long?”

“Only seventy years. By then the Glatun had discovered the Rangora.”

“And?”

“I got assigned as part of the cultural uplift team,” the fabber said with a sigh. “Please spare me from another such assignment.”

“We’ll see,” Tyler said. “What were you doing?”

“Oh, making stuff they needed,” Granadica said. “Non-military, of course. You’re the first species I can recall that the Glatun gave mil-tech to. But the same sort of stuff. What species need, at first, absent what’s going on with you, is shuttles, small freighters, mining ships. That way they can bootstrap themselves. I produced…well, you name it.”

“Hmmm…” Tyler said. “How were the Rangora on maintenance?”

“Oh, puhleeeease,” Granadica said. “They thought a…well you’d say an ox cart, was high tech. They were imposs… Oh.”

“Did they have a lot of failures?” Tyler asked.

“Oh, those BuCult Bastards!” Granadica snarled. “Those rat bastards!”

“Bureau of Culture?” Tyler asked.

“Bureau of Culture and Trade,” Granadica said. “One of the few government agencies ever to go out of business. When you run into species they’re very rarely space-faring. To make grav plates you need grav plates. Without grav plates you’re using chemical rockets. Never, ever cost effective. Ogut weren’t even there, yet. Close but not there. Rangora were at gron carts and ships like your caravels. To make a species viable for trade they need to be able to mine resources on their own. Space mining. Information technology. Be able to spread out and terraform worlds. Start off with a culture that’s not even got steam and you’ve got a long way to go. And part of that is culture. You can’t do it ‘pretty well’ in space. Hope that there’s an initial non-lethal fault. Because eventually, if you don’t pay attention to your maintenance, you get a lethal fault. There are rarely second chances in space… Oh, those rat bastards!”

“How are the Rangora, now?” Tyler asked.

“You’ve seen their AVs,” Granadica said. “I didn’t build ’em. Those rat…”

“We get it, Granadica,” Tyler said. “And I think we can probably get you fixed. You think that’s where this comes from?”

“Almost certainly,” Granadica said. “Somewhere deep in my…subconscious is a program that recognizes that I’m supplying to a recently connected race. So I start making little, minor and non-fatal, faults in finished systems. I haven’t done suits but they’d probably be in those, too. Not infrastructure. That makes sense. That’s why Vulcan and Hephaestus are fine. Although there were some faults in the systems supplied to the fuel station… Hmmm…”

“Can you run it down, now?” Tyler asked.

“I’m finding some of the code as we speak,” Granadica said. “And I’m not going to touch it. This is going to take a good cyberneticist and another AI. Probably Argus. This is going to be detailed. Here’s the problem. There are going to be codes that say ‘Make a fault.’ There are going to be other codes that figure out what fault to make.”

“Understood,” Tyler said.

“Pull out the ‘make a fault’ codes and instead of random they just get regular,” Granadica said. “Pull out the ‘type’ code and they get…not non-lethal. I don’t want a nearly finished shuttle blowing up in my guts if you don’t mind.”

“Understood,” Tyler said. “Admiral Duvall, I suspect we’ve found the culprit, at least in theory. But it’s going to take time to clean out. Continue production?”

“Every fault found has been non-lethal to date,” the Admiral said.

“Excuse me!” Dr. Barreiro said.

“Captain DiNote?” the Admiral asked.

“We can work with it,” DiNote said. “The 144th is coming online for Malta duty. All new shuttles. Not a problem though. German squadron.”

“Excuse me,” Dr. Barreiro said. “All of this is predicated upon the assumption that our personnel are not doing maintenance!”

“Alliance personnel, Foreign Minister,” Admiral Duvall said. “Which will be dealt with through channels.”

“How, exactly?” Dr. Werden asked. “Because we have seen a large number of accusations but the crux of the matter is clearly Apollo.”

“Annnd…time to break for lunch,” Tyler said. “If anyone wants me, I’ll be in my quarters.”

 

* * *

 

“Argus?” Tyler said, sitting down on his rack. It wasn’t much better than the Under Minister’s. In fact, it wasn’t as good as the Foreign Ministers. He didn’t really care, much, about perks per se, either as status items or from a comfort perspective. Better than a cave in a New Hampshire winter. So, he’d been a nice guy as usual. He was regretting that.

“Sir?”

Hypercom connected through gates, at least if it wasn’t jammed, and faster than light. Tyler could talk to his AI on Wolf as fast as on the Troy.

“I find the fact that Doctor Palencia was ‘well aware’ of Parker’s opinion of Argentinean maintenance…interesting. Are there correspondence between…hmm…the Argentinean or other foreign ministries and the commander of the 143rd on the subject of Parker?”

“If I had that information it would be privileged military communication and you would have to obtain clearance, sir,” Argus replied.

“What if we already stole it?” Tyler asked. “We’ve got an intelligence department.”

“Oh, look, here it is,” Argus said.

“You could have just gone there, Argus,” Tyler said. “Download. I want to read it.”

“Are you sure?” Argus said. “Have you taken your blood pressure medicine?”

“I don’t take blood pressure medicine, Argus,” Tyler said. “In fact, don’t download it.”

“Oh. Good.”

“Print it out.”

A couple of minutes later he looked up.

“Argus, don’t screw around with this or I’ll fly back to Troy and pull your core again. I want every similar communication.”

“Yes, sir.”