Robert Wilson - Bios

“Manager, I’m sorry, but time is important. Whatever it was that took out Pod Six, it affected the men first, the electrical systems second, and then the structural integrity of the pod itself—all in less than an hour. I don’t want to lose any more staff.”

“According to our telemetry, the problem was contained. If you have any evidence to the contrary, please share it with me.”

“With all due respect, I don’t have evidence of anything! All I know for certain is that one of my laboratories is at the bottom of the ocean and two of my men are dead. At the time of the accident, they had bacterial plaques in their glove box. I don’t know if that contributed to the problem or not, but we have similar organisms in just about every glove box in the station. If it constitutes a threat—”

“You can’t know that.”

“No, I can’t, which is precisely why—”

“You’re suggesting we abandon an extremely valuable resource because of one accident and your own surmise.”

“We can always reoccupy the station.”

“At an enormous expense in resources and work hours.”

“Manager … do you really want to assume that risk?”

The bastard was trying to protect himself in case of more trouble. Degrandpre imagined Li testifying at a Trust inquiry: Although I requested an evacuation in unequivocal terms…

“just give me any hard information you happen to have, Dr. Li, and we’ll proceed from there.”

Li bit his lip but knew better than to argue. “If you’ve been monitoring our telemetry, you know as much as I do. The pod went bad this morning. No communication from the crew, only siren. I ordered the bulkheads sealed. The pod’s electrical and life-support systems shut down shortly thereafter, for reasons unknown. An hour after that, the pod lost hull integrity and collapsed under pressure. That’s all we know.”

“Have you recovered any of the wreckage?”

“We don’t have enough tractibles or excursion gear to recover solid wreckage.”

“All right. Make the shuttle bay ready for evacuation, but wait for my order. In the meantime, try to gather at least some portion of any evidence that happens to be floating on the surface. Don’t bring anything substantial past quarantine, but archive samples for the glove boxes.”

“For the record, I strongly recommend evacuating the station now and conducting any investigation by remote.”

“Noted. Thank you for your opinion. Please do as I say.”

He gave the com control to a subordinate.

When the initial report had been filed and the cleanup delegated—and in the absence of further alarms—Degrandpre put his assistant in charge and issued orders to alert him if the situation deteriorated.

By the clock, he hadn’t eaten for nearly ten hours—nor, in deference, had anyone else in the ops room. He ordered a shift change and meals by tractible for anyone staying on duty.

Then he walked to the command commissary, where he found Corbus Nefford dining calmly on braised peppers and basmati rice. The gardens grew a limited range of spices and the IOS biosynthesized others, but Nefford’s dish smelled strikingly of fresh garlic and basil.

The physician regarded him with undisguised pleasure. “Join me, Manager?”

Weary, Degrandpre found a chair opposite Nefford. “I assume you’ve heard.”

“About the incident at the Oceanic Station? A little.” “Because I would prefer not to talk about it.” “The crisis is over?”

“Yes.” Was that wishful thinking? “The crisis is over.” “Two lives lost?”

“You’re as well-informed as I am, apparently. Now talk about something else, Corbus, or be quiet and let me eat.” The service tractible waited for his order. He was hungry but he asked for something light—a salad with protein strips.

The chastened physician was briefly silent before a new subject came to mind: “There are fresh Turing gens from Earth, I hear.”

“You’re a font of good news. I didn’t know you took an interest in engineering.”

“Only as it affects my future, Manager. Possibly even yours.”

“New Turing gens? I don’t remember agreeing to a gen switch … or are these next year’s algorithms?”

“Brand-new gens, apparently, but Engineering tells me they came with a priority tag.”

“We’re having a hard enough time meeting maintenance schedules as it is. We’ll have to modify our quotas, unless this is an efficiency fix.”

“Devices and Personnel wants our Turing factories manufacturing parts for a planetary interferometer.”

“Nonsense. They floated that idea years ago. Oh, it will have to be done eventually … a survey of the local stars, possibly even Higgs launches from the Isis system … but not in the near future.” An Isian interferometer would be able to image worlds undetectable from the Terrestrial system. But all that was theoretical and would likely remain so for a long time. Rapid expansion into the galaxy wasn’t a policy of the Works Trust or of the Families. The only voices calling for an increase in the pace of exploration—with all the fiscal sacrifice that would entail—came from dissident elements in Devices and Personnel.

Unless—

Could Devices and Personnel have become powerful enough to order new Turing gens? Would the Works Trust really sit still for that?

He had been away from Earth too long to guess.

“Manager?”

Nefford was almost salivating for a reaction. Degrandpre declined to give him one. “I’m sorry, Corbus. I was thinking of something else.”

The physician’s features collapsed into disappointment. “You’ll excuse me,” Degrandpre said, standing. “Manager, what about your meal?” “Have it sent to my quarters.”

Eight hours later, there had been no new development in the outpost crisis. Even Freeman Li had begun to calm down, no longer demanding an immediate evac, only pushing for a “contingency plan,” not an unreasonable request. Degrandpre agreed to keep the shuttle bays on standby and ordered an immediate investigation, sending the Kuiper woman Elam Mather from Yambuku to the oceanic outpost to oversee the process. She was a competent worker in her own way, and as an outpost scientist, she would have the skills to supervise cleanup and isolation ops.

After a long session spent briefing the section managers, he returned to his cabin to sort through a stack of recent transmissions from Earth. And yes, Corbus Nefford had been correct; here was an order specifying broad new protocols for the Turing factories, shunting valuable raw material into this scheme to build a large-scale imaging interferometer. Devices and Personnel wanted a functioning planetary imager established before the end of the decade, plus a host of secondary probes to identify small asteroids and Kuiper objects that might ultimately serve as Higgs launchers. Madness! But the Works Trust was cooperating and Degrandpre could hardly resist; the loss of the oceanic lab had already stained his record.

There was a time when he might have enjoyed this kind of intrigue. When he thought he was good at it. But the forces at work here were vast, impersonal, Hegelian. He would be crushed, or he would not; the outcome was beyond his control.

Unless—

Buried in the filestack of communiques he found a secured order to begin Zoe Fisher’s fieldwork “with all possible speed.” He took it at first for a Devices and Personnel addendum, but it wasn’t; it came with a Works seal. He was taken aback: Rushing the Fisher woman’s walkabout might well produce another casualty, another stain on Degrandpre’s fragile career record.

And a setback for the radicals of Devices and Personnel? Was that what the Works Trust wanted?