David Brin - The Heart of the Comet

If they kept losing people, over the seventy-year haul the mechs would have to be much more independent than the expedition had planned. And she had to be slotted eventually, so she had to at least start on a better programming system right away.

READING NEARING COMPLETION.

She sent an expression of relieved excitement: burnt-gold lightning strokes zapping across a velvet sky.

I RECORDED THE TRIGGER SITE. I COULD SUMMON UP FOR VOLUNTARY RECALL THE INCIDENT FROM YOUR CHILDHOOD. FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT.

“I wasn’t a child , you bucket of bolts.”

THE ASSOCIATIONS—

“And I don’t think it was `entertaining’ either. That big hulk of a boy—“She had a sudden jolting memory of a rasping, panting male voice muttering Eli a hohonu keia lua . His hard, machinelike ramming had hammered the words into her memory: I dig this hole deep. She shuddered.

YOU MAY MOVE NOW. READING COMPLETED.

“Thanks.”

NOT THE BEST OF BEGINNINGS.

She knew JonVon didn’t mean the reading. “No, it wasn’t. Oh, he was kind enough, I guess. I liked him enough to go out with him several times before that, after all. But never after… that.”

AND SINCE?

“I’ve had my share. An engineer in college… no, who am I kidding? Not many. Not many at all.”

A CONGRUENCY IS DIFFICULT.

“It’s not a mathematical congruence, you know, JonVon. People don’t look for someone exactly like themselves. Almost the opposite, in fact.”

YOU ARE YOUNG. YOU SEEK AGE?

Saul’s s desert-weathered face came to her, grinning in that lovely distracted way he had, and for a moment she was not sure whether she had recalled it or…yes… “JonVon, you put him in my head.”

IT SEEMED NEEDFUL.

“ I’ll be the judge of that. At least let me stage manage my own fantasies!”

OF COURSE.

But the quick vision of that lopsided grin below the dark, seldom-joyful eyes had indeed gotten to her. It seemed an age since she had seen him, taken shelter in those strong enveloping arms, smelled the heady musk of him, talked—

“JonVon! Call him for me.”

I BELIEVE HE HAS AN APPOINTMENT WITH CARL OSBORN. ONE OF THE MECHS I COMMAND WITNESSED HIM PASS BY 1.34 MINUTES AGO.

“Drat! I miss him.” She jerked the foam padding away from her head and grimaced at the imposing banks of equipment: spindly nuclear resonance pickups, looming pancake magnet poles, ranks of digitizers.

“I’m worn out with this everlasting crisis.”

YOU NEED RECREATION.

“You bet.”

A picture leaped into her mind—so graphic, so lurid—silky entwined limbs, and more. She would have turned away if she had ever seen it displayed in mixed company…and yet she found it sensually enticing, pulse-quickening, as if calculated to pry up the hinges of her own special private places.

“JonVon!”

ONLY A SUGGESTION.

The quilted scenes faded, leaving a halo of blue afterimage.

“How did you… know?”

I READ A LOT.

It was, she supposed, a joke.

Over here!” Carl shouted.

Saul’s silhouette turned at the far end of Tunnel K and waved. The figure kicked off and glided the hundred meters, passing through pools of ivory phosphor radiance.

“Damned chilly,” Saul said as he windmilled to bring his feet around in front of himself. He landed, knees taking the shock.

He’s getting better , Carl reflected. Everybody’s going to have to learn to sweat from now on . “We’re keeping it cold even in the central tunnels now. Me, I’d like to vac all these.”

“It would cut down on our maneuverability enormously.”

“Cut down on the purples, too.”

“I use the inner tunnels every hour or so. If I had to suit up every time”

“I’m going to recommend it anyway.”

“Bethany Oakes has already decided.”

“Yeah, I know.” Every time you confront Lintz with a problem he starts citing decisions by the higher-ups.

Saul seemed reflective. “On the way here Lani and I saw Ingersoll down one of the side passages near Level A. He’s eating native forms, I think. Amazing. He seems harmless, if crazy.”

Carl felt a jab of irritation at the mere mention of Ingersoll. Things are so bad we can’t even catch a madman . But he kept his voice matter-of-fact; diplomacy came first. “Yeah, he’s crazy, but crazy like a fox.”

He shook his head and decided to get right to the point.

“I… Look, I’m going to propose to Oakes that we go retrieve the Newburn .”

“Really? You’ve really located it?”

“Right. It was Lani’s idea, actually. We were just talking, looking at that numerical simulation Virginia did a while back.”

“The one which showed how the Newburn’s solar sail could’ve been shredded by Halley’s plasma tail?”

“Yeah. I figure the other slot tugs were just plain lucky they didn’t get hit. The cross-tail-induced currents probably blew out Newburn’s tracer beacons, too. Without that sail deployed, finding Newburn was hopeless. So Lani, she says maybe we could try sending tightbeam microwaves and listen for an echo. I used a little sack time and did just that and—bingo! —got a signal back after a week long search.

“Wonderful. And so simple!”

Saul’s surprise was gratifying. At least he didn’t think of it first . “We’re going to need those forty sleepers, at the rate we’re losing people.”

Saul nodded, thinking. “Right… the manpower problem will get worse.”

“We’ve got to do it soon. The Newburn’s drifted pretty far away, more than two million klicks already.”

“I agree, but I still don’t understand. Why get me all the way out here to tell me?”

“I want to line up support first, before telling the Committee. I’m no good at arguing with Oakes.”

“And I am?”

“Right. Also, I want you to go with us as doctor.”

Saul brightened. “Good thinking. Those slots may have suffered damage.”

“Be a good morale booster, too.”

“Exactly what we all need. I’m sure I can make Betty see the advantages, now that the purples are under control. But can the Edmund fly right away?”

“Jeffers says his tritium-finding mechs have already filtered out enough to quarter-fill the short-range tanks, just as a byproduct from tunnel digging. He can top off the fuel we’ll need inside a week.”

“Good! You’ve thought this through.”

Is that supposed to be a compliment? Gee, thanks, Dr. Lintz. We grunts try to do some thinkin’ now and then, we do.

“Let’s see.” Saul rubbed his chin. It’ll take the better part a month to get there. That means we’d have to take some hydroponics modules, and…”

Carl had already figured out the basics, but he had also learned that it was a good idea to let scientists talk for a while before you got on to the hard part, the decisions. Maybe that was what kept them out of the really top positions. If you sat there while they gave their little lectures, usually they’d feel they’d had their say and they wouldn’t make a lot of stupid objections to what was already obvious.

Saul crouched against the wall with the innate insecurity of a ground dweller, always a little uptight about simply hanging on to a handhold above what his senses—no matter how well he trained them into submission—told him was a long drop.

“Sure,” Carl said when Saul had wound down a little. “Point is, what about Oakes?”