Alan Foster - Exceptions to Reality

The engineer exhaled slowly. “Do they know about the leak?”

“No.” Cassie stared at him. “That I couldn’t tell them. Nobody else is up to that, either. They’ll find out when the crew goes in. There isn’t much hope, is there?”

“I’m afraid not. The rescue specs are working like maniacs, but even if the leak doesn’t get any worse, the air in there’ll be gone before they can cut the door. Morrie Reuschel was engineer on duty when it happened. We haven’t heard from him. If he’s that badly hurt, then the girl…” His words trailed off into inaudibility, foundering in despair.

“The only communication we have with the module is via its independent Module Lifesystems Monitor. It says it got wanged pretty good, but you know how much redundancy those suckers have built into them. It took stock of its losses and shifted all necessary functions to undamaged components outside the module. That’s the only reason we have some idea of what’s going on inside. One boardline survived the damage, so we’re still getting reports.”

The woman frowned. “But there’s no power to the module.”

“The section there is operating on standard multiple battery backup.”

“I know.” She leaned curiously over the console. “But it shouldn’t be. It’s designed to render a report and then shut itself down to preserve programming and functions if it loses primary power. Something else is wrong. Has it requested repair instructions yet?”

“I would imagine.” Hedrickson checked a readout. “Yeah. Right here. Haven’t been sent out, though.”

“Why not?”

“Central’s dealing with more serious damage elsewhere.”

Chin straightened. “Instead of cycling through shutdown the way it’s supposed to, it keeps requesting repair instructions. There’s got to be a reason.” She thought furiously. “Can you override Central from here?”

Hedrickson frowned at her. “I think so, but you’d better have a damn good reason for messing with prescribed damage-control procedure.”

“As a matter of fact I don’t have any reason at all. But it seems as if the Molimon does. If its internal diagnostics are functioning well enough to tell you what’s wrong, can you send it the necessary instructions on how to fix itself?”

“Why bother? Just so I’ll have something to tell the board of inquiry.”

“I just told you: It’s got to have a reason for not shutting itself down.”

Hedrickson looked dubious. “You’ll take the responsibility?”

“I’ll take the responsibility. See what you can do, Karl.”

The technician bent to work. Cassie stood staring at the wall. Halfway around the station the darkened, leaking module swung precariously on the end of its access tube, to all intents and purposes dead along with everything it contained. Dead except for one semi-independent device, which was disobeying procedure.

Computers do not act on whims, she thought. They respond only according to programming. Something was affecting the priorities of the Molimon unit that supervised the hydroponics module. But it could not proceed without apposite human directives.

Sometimes you just had to have faith in the numbers.

The darkness and gathering chill did not trouble the Molimon. It was immune to all but the most extreme swings of temperature. Reserve power continued to diminish. Still it did not commence shutdown.

Information on how to effect necessary repairs finally began to arrive. Gratefully the incoming instructions were processed. The problem with the critical downed memory was located and a solution devised. Memory reintegration proceeded smoothly, enabling the Molimon to bypass one of the downed molly drives.

The system component that most concerned the Molimon reported borderline functional. It sent out a command, to no response. Clearly the trouble was more serious than anyone, including its programmers, had anticipated.

That did not mean the problem was insoluble. It merely required a period of careful internal debate. The Molimon’s internal voting architecture went to work. One processor opted for procedure as written, even though that had already failed. The second suggested an alternative. Noting the failure of the first, processor three sided with two. Having thus analyzed and debated, it tried anew.

This time the door responded. Like all internal airtights it contained its own backup power cell. Running the instructions exhausted the self-contained cell’s power, but the Molimon was not concerned with that. It wanted the door shut. Opening it again would be a matter for future programs.

Internal alarms began to go off. It had spent entirely too much time operating when it ought to have been shutting down. There was insufficient power to preserve programming. When it shut down now, it would do so with concurrent loss of memory, even though all critical information would be effectively preserved on the surviving mirrored molly drives. The Molimon was not bothered by this knowledge. It had fulfilled another, more important aspect of its programming.

Enough reserve strength remained for it to send a last message to a slave monitor. Composition of the message caused the Molimon some difficulty despite the fact that it had been programmed to accept and respond in plain English.

Then its backup power gave out completely.

Amy was waiting patiently next to the mixing vats when they found her. The jammed lock door gave way with a reluctant groan. Shouts, then laughter, then tears filled the hitherto silent module. She looked very small and vulnerable wrapped up in the dead engineer’s jacket.

Cassie Chin watched the reunion, wiping at her eyes as she listened to the wild exclamations of delight and joy. Mike Macek was tossing his daughter so high into the air, Cassie was afraid that in the limited gravity he was going to bounce her off the ceiling. Her expression turned somber as she watched others kneel beside the body of Morrie Reuschel.

Eventually her attention shifted to the rearmost of the module’s airtight doors. Somehow the Molimon had managed to get it to shut, effectively sealing off the air leak in the section beyond. That action had preserved the remaining atmosphere in the other three-fourths of the module until the rescue team had succeeded in punching its way in. She regarded the lifesaving door awhile longer, then turned to business.

Karl Hedrickson was waiting for her.

“Look at the damn thing. It’s half bashed in.” He pointed at the debris-laden floor. “Looks like that big wrench hit it.”

Cassie sighed. “Let’s get the rear panel off.”

Their first view of the Molimon’s guts had Hedrickson shaking his head. “These mollys must’ve gone down first. Then I don’t know what else.”

“But after it fixed itself it figured out how to seal off the leak and stayed online long enough to get the job done.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Batteries?”

Hedrickson ran a quick check, made a face. “Dead as an imploded mouse.”

Chin pursued her lips. “Then the programming’s gone. I don’t mind that except it means we’ll never learn why it didn’t follow accepted procedure and commence preservation shutoff when the primary power went down.”

Hedrickson turned to the nearest monitor, plugged in a power cell, and brought the Molimon unit online. “Nothing here,” he told her after several minutes of inquiry. “No, wait a sec. There is a shutdown indicator. It knew it was going.” He frowned. “The message is in nonstandard format.”

Chin moved to join him. Lights were coming on all around them as repair crews began to restore station power to the hydroponics module.