Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer) (62 page)

“This
checks out,” he said putting the panel back on. “At least for now.”

“Good.
Can you do something about the computer interface? And the buffers?” Sprite
asked.

The
admiral nodded. “Our next stop. You mentioned the captain is a problem?”

“He
refuses to allow anyone else over here apparently. I inquired casually when I
made the last report. Quote, no. End quote.”

The
admiral frowned. “Great.”

“Admiral,
I can't blame him. It's not safe,” she said.

“I
can't blame him either. Which is why we're working on that,” he sighed as he
looked at the IO panel and the memory buffer nearby. It had been torched. “One
step at a time,” he said bypassing it. “Let's find the security system. See if
we can start closing some doors and trapping the Dilgarth and gangs. Or at
least drive them away from the area.”

“Understood.”

He
made the rounds around the room before stopping at the center dais once more.
“That's everything here,” Irons said. Security had been a bit of a bust.
Something had locked it out or dropped the controls into local. He did manage
to locate the largest pockets of organics left on the station and drop a few
doors. Not many though.

“Are
you planning on doing that through the whole station admiral?” Sid asked, holo
projection forming across from him. He turned and looked around, whistling a
little. “Better,” he said. “Better than it's been in a couple of centuries,” he
said nodding in approval.

“I
know, and yes, I know this is just the tip of the iceberg. And yes, I know I've
been doing this all wrong,” Irons said, sitting in a chair heavily. He rested
his arm on a console. His ports opened, USB jacks immediately deployed. He felt
Sprite and Proteus go to work as Defender hovered over his arm, forming a
firewall.

“Going
about this wrong? How so?” Sid asked amused.

“By
trying to do everything on my own,” Irons said amused. “Yes I know, but I
wanted intel. The best way to do it was here. But I need to track down some
repair bots and some people.”

“I
heard you have a lot of people over on the ship?” Sid asked suggestively.

“Yes.
Over seven thousand people. The problem is they won't come over here if it's
not safe,” Irons replied. “So we need to make it safe. Or at least safer.”

“Ah,”
Sid said in understanding, crossing his arms in front of him. “I see.”

“Hey,
I know spacers. We are all known for taking risks. But they are
calculated
risks. I can't blame the captain for holding his people back. They stuck their
noses in with me the last time and ran into a buzz saw. He's not eager for a
repeat performance.”

“I...
see,” Sid said nodding.

“How
goes the debate?” Irons asked, changing the subject. “We could use some of your
help as well,” he said.

“That...”
Sid looked embarrassed. “It's still going on. I thought it was over at the Fu's
but apparently it's started up again. People are people, and most of us are
bureaucrats. Many are lawyers. You know the deal, everyone's got to talk it to
death before they do anything about it,” he sighed.

“I
take it that's why this station is the way it is?” Irons asked.

Sid
sighed sadly. “In a way. Part of the reason is we tied each other’s hands. And
no one could do anything about it. Draco...” He looked suddenly afraid.

“The
insane AI? We're going to have to do something about him soon,” Irons said.
There was no way he was going to share quarters with an insane AI. Rampant AI
was bad enough; one that was homicidal was quite something else. It could
infect Sprite or the other AI. He was surprised it hadn't done that with the
civilian AI already.

Sid
frowned. “Draco is the only reason we are still here. He's not bad, not most of
the time he's somewhat sane. He keeps to himself and makes what repairs he can
with the bots and in the net. Most of the time he sleeps to conserve
resources.”

“Like
the storied dragons of long ago mythology,” Irons replied with a nod. “Go on,”
he said.

“Draco...
you have to understand, we... we were a manufacturing center. The premier one
in the system. Hell in this part of the sector. But well... politics...”

“I
heard it's a tricky situation,” Irons replied with a nod.

“You
have no idea,” Sid sighed. “The corporation is or I should say was pacifistic
in nature. So most of the board was the same. Many had great ideas for building
utopias but didn't have the skills to pull it off. So they hired people like
Draco,” he looked up at the ceiling for a brief moment. “And others,” he said, still
looking wary.

“I
take it saying his name invites dangerous interest?” Irons replied. He who must
not be named indeed. The AI might have a tag on his name, say it and it alerts
him.

“You
guessed it,” Sid sighed. “So we went with he who must not be named but he
twigged on that as well.” They apparently didn't know how he could listen for
that with a simple bot. Yes, they weren't programmers.

“Must
be a Rowling fan,” Sprite replied with a smirk in the air.

“Huh?”
Sid asked.

“Never
mind. Very old fiction from Earth. Or should I say fantasy author. Anyway,”
Irons said with an impatient wave. “I understand you had ideals but not the
means to implement them. So...”

“We
hired those who had the skills but not necessarily the ideals. Which caused all
sorts of problems when the Xeno war broke out.”

“Oh?”

“Many
went off to help in the war effort. Others wanted the station to help as well.
Which...” Sid shrugged helplessly.

“Cause
a bone of contention in the board?”

“Yes.
It didn't help that the corporation was nationalized. The board refused to make
any weapons. Just nonmilitary goods and materials. Equipment for civilian use,”
Sid said apologetically. “We were down to a skeleton crew after a while.

“Interesting,”
the admiral said. He thought about it. Something didn't make sense. Why would a
station of this level be largely abandoned even during the Xeno war? This area
had been flooded with refugees... you would of thought the government would
have put an effort into maximizing the usage of every factory it had right?
Something didn't make sense.

“We
didn't even want a security force but well...”

“Sanity
won out in the end?” Emily interjected with a smile as her avatar formed next
to her husband. He smiled a welcoming smile to her. She smiled back.

“You
could say that,” he murmured. “Which was another problem,” Sid sighed, turning
back to Irons.

“We
don't need to air all our dirty laundry out all at once you know,” Myers said
irritably. They looked up and then snorted.

“Are
we going anywhere with this?” Averies asked.

“I
take it you folks want to help now?” Irons asked looking at each of them.

“We're
tired of arguing with the others. Let them argue. The time for action is now,”
Averies said.

“Good,”
Irons replied. “I... which one of you is the programmer?” he asked.

“I
am,” Averies replied. He was one of the cybers who didn't have a body, just a
set of eyes and a mouth. “You want me to help the AI?”

The
admiral nodded. “Sprite and Proteus. Please if you will. I'd suggest working on
the databases. Repairing indexes and making bots to create new ones is
tedious...”

“But
it's something I've done before. On it,” Averies said with a disconnecting pop.
Irons nodded.

“When
do you think you can get parts? I mean there is only so much your nanites can
do admiral,” Myers said. The admiral cocked an eyebrow. Doctor Myers was quick
and observant to have realized Irons had nanites.

“I
have a small industrial replicator in my shuttle keyed to me. It doesn't have
raw material though. I've got a list going. If you can find some raw stocks?”
He'd have to get to it to remake the nanites he realized. That was annoying.

“I've
got some in mind. I'll look into it,” Doctor Myers said with a nod. He had a
virtual head and torso but was like the old Hollywood apparitions or genies. He
had no legs just a wispy tail.

“Good.
We need bots. A couple of cargo bots, security bots, and most of all repair
bots,” Irons said, looking at the Berkhearts.

“I'll
look into that,” Emily said with a smile. “You want them tagged with the
closest proximity to this location of course?” she asked. Irons nodded. “Good
to know. I'll be back in a jiff,” she said with a smile and wave. Her holo
vanished.

“Good
woman,” Irons said nodding to Sid.

“Sometimes
I wonder why she married a dork like me,” Sid sighed, smiling. Irons smiled a
familiar smile. Sid shook himself. “The Stewards are in but they are too busy
in the net managing life support they said so they can't spare the time to say
hi. I can keep track of the Dilgarth and the gangs. You want me to herd them
away from special areas?”

The
admiral nodded. “Yes please. I'd like to clear a safe zone around admin, my
shuttle and the nearest reactor. Safe paths as well if possible.”

“I'm
not sure about the paths but I think the rest is possible. They never come to
admin anyway. Let me look into the rest,” Sid said with a nod as he blinked
out.

Sprite
accessed the station's biographies of each of the surviving cybers to bring him
up to speed on the other cybers and AI as each check in one by one. She dropped
a hint about who they were and their specialty during each introduction. “May I
introduce Gashg Ribber? The botanist?” Sprite said, turning as another
apparition formed. This one was of a Gashg. Irons nodded.

“I
thank you admiral for your help,” The Gashg said. His virtual eyes rotated. The
holo showed him aged, and for some reason covered in vines and lichen. “I'm old
admiral, anything to ease my burden is welcome,” he said.

“We'll
try to get you back on track as soon as possible,” Irons said to the gardener
bowing politely.

“I
must go. I need to check the nutrients in vat six. It keeps going out of balance,”
the alien said vanishing.

“Well
that was quick,” Irons replied.

“From
my math we've got eight of the eighteen cybers on our side so far. The stewards
haven't checked in with you because they are busy and aren't happy about all
the damage you inflicted on your way in here,” Sprite reported.

“I'll
make it up to them later,” Irons replied dryly. “By my math that's seven
Sprite. Where is number eight?”

“Here
she is now. Medical administrator, Megan Trask,” Sprite said, stepping aside as
another holo presented itself.

Irons
nodded. The woman was small, almost mousy in appearance. She looked aged, wore
wire rim glasses, and had a classic medical smock on complete with stethoscope.
Her hair was an iron gray, short but with curled bangs. He wondered if she put
on airs because she was in the medical field or if she really had been a doctor
before. Data scrolled on one side of her hologram. Sprite was feeding his HUD
the biography information from her file. He ignored most of it, Age, sex,
marital history... none of that really mattered right now.

“Thank
you admiral. For doing this. For seeing me,” she said quietly and then adjusted
her glasses.  It was a mannerism that she had kept after centuries as an
avatar. Facilitating in away. “I know I... we are all on thin ice. We haven't
been doing our jobs,” she said, looking very uncomfortable.

There
was so much self loathing in that statement that Irons blinked and then his jaw
hardened. He hated it when people did that, when they wallowed in self pity.
“You've been doing your best in a strenuous situation,” Sprite murmured
soothingly. She flashed a look of appeal to Irons when the woman looked away.

“True,”
Irons said. “I believe it's probably difficult to do your job when things are
like this,” he said. He could understand their limits, after all they were in
the computer net, connected to the real world through the network of computers
and sensors instead of through flesh and blood.

“You
have no idea,” she sighed shaking her head. “No idea. At least when I was real,
a doctor I had hands...” she held out her hands.

“You
were a medical doctor?” Sprite asked. “I'm sorry, I don't have access to your
personnel files just your thumbnail on the web.”

“Yes,”
Doctor Trask said. She brushed her hair out of her eyes. It was so much of her
identity that apparently it had stuck to her virtual image Irons thought. His
repairs had apparently helped them with their self image, the avatars were
better, more detailed now. Either that or the emitters and memory in admin was
larger... he shook the thought off and forced himself to pay attention. “I was
a general practitioner. I, like a lot of doctors opened my own practice. I did
well; I became so popular that when the corporation's medical division set its
sights on the planet I was on I was bought out. I took shares in lieu of my
payment. The shares...” She shrugged.