Fortunes of the Imperium (20 page)

CHAPTER 18

“Fzzt! Too much solvent,” said Ensign DE576-OA, a compact technobot about the size of an twelve-liter barrel. “More care, please. Use suction to remove it before it affects the circuits to either side.”

I moved the tiny tip of the tool I wielded in against the silver motherboard as directed and removed most of the drop of bright blue fluid. My cheeks were moist with perspiration underneath the heavy magnifying goggles I wore. They increased the acuity of my vision some three thousand times. I was curled up uncomfortably beneath a console in the sick bay amid chemical and animal smells, as well as that acrid aroma which arose from the solvent. I felt almost as I had when I was first released from the medical facility on Keinolt following my habilitation treatment. All things seemed to be grossly out of proportion, but this time it was for a reason.

When I was summoned before him, Captain Naftil had been less patient with me than I thought he would be. Perhaps he had been egged on by Jil. Perhaps he simply did not wish to appear to be a soft touch. Since I seemed unable to resist defying his instructions during my rest periods, he directed that I should be deprived of them for a while. As a result, I was sentenced to punishment detail. When I was not engaged in personal hygiene or meals, he would see to it that I would have something useful to occupy my time.

I focused through the thick lenses, and aimed the pinpoint light upon the small striped element. With a pair of pliers more minute than a strand of hair, I extracted the part from its parent circuit and brought it closer to my eye.

“Is it damaged?” Dee asked. One of his ocular units moved into my field of vision, looking like a pipe from a municipal water main instead of the tiny microscope it was.

“It seems to have burst from the inside,” I said, holding it for him to see. I dropped it into a curved plastic dish. It should have gone
clank
, if it had been the size it appeared to me, but since it was so small, it went
tick
instead.

My new task was to search out and repair microcircuitry, under the guidance of the LAI who ran the department. Although it was a bother to be separated from my new pupil, I was enjoying the tutelage of a new teacher myself. My new task was interesting, and Dee was a painstaking taskmaster. I respected his expertise and patience. He and I struck up a companionship. I learned more about microcircuitry in an afternoon than I had picked up in my entire life thus far. Under normal circumstances, only mechanicals replaced the malfunctioning elements. They were more fitted to not only precision work but also to detecting the problems with built-in equipment that Humans, Uctu, and all the other flesh-and-blood species lacked. New staff of the engineering department were assigned to do what I was doing, to learn the various peculiarities of the devices in use around the ship and see what went wrong the most frequently. It was also good for a penalty exercise, because it involved a good deal of bending, crawling into equipment cabinets, up into ceilings, down lift tubes and into other small spaces generally considered uncomfortably inaccessible. I did not strictly require such knowledge, but no effort is wasted, I mused, as I replaced the burned-out unit with a fresh one.

“Now engage the diagnostic nanites,” Dee said.

If I had shaken the microscopic machines out of their tube by hand, I would probably have broadcast them all over the lab. Instead, I reached for the control console in the rolling toolbox beside me. I spoke the order.

“Nanites, check function of rehabilitation machine,” I said. “Reconnect disabled circuits and report.”

This was my favorite part of the process. From a covered bin in the toolbox, a stream of tiny silver particles poured out. If I had not been wearing my goggles, it would have been invisible to me. It flowed across the floor, up the leg of the machine, and vanished like water on sand into the workings of the medical device.

“How many of them are we using today?” I asked.

Dee emitted a brief whirring noise.

“Three million, five hundred sixty thousand and nine,” he said.

I waited, holding my breath. Slowly, like a ripple on the sea, the nanites emerged from the machine. They formed a foil-like sheet on the surface that shimmered delicately. I let out a sigh of wonder.

“Can you see any breaks?” Dee inquired. I scanned the silver sheet. It appeared intact.

“No,” I said. “I think all systems are go.” I glanced over to the control console. The screen, as large as my bunk, flashed a row of zeroes. “Well done, team!” I said heartily.

“They cannot understand you, Thomas,” Dee said. “They are too simple a machine.”

“I can’t help it,” I said. “I have so many friends who are artificial intelligences that I find myself talking with all sorts of devices. Better safe than sorry is my motto.” I rolled a hopeful eye in Dee’s direction. “May I make them do it again?”

“Not necessary,” Dee said.

“But it’s so much fun to watch them!” I was struck at that moment by humorous inspiration. “Dee, how many nanites does it take to change a light bulb?”

“LED, incandescent, halogen or compact fluorescent?”

I threw back my head and laughed. I hadn’t expected him to reply with another question. Unfortunately, the space into which I had wedged myself permitted little movement before I forcibly impacted with a barrier.

“Ow!” I exclaimed. I wriggled my arm through the constricted area to rub the offended portion of my cranium. “Well, that teaches me to experiment in LAI humor.”

A soft chuckle came from overhead. I stuck my head out from underneath the console. A gigantic, moonlike face with pale skin surrounded by a forest of waving dark trees—I mean, hair—gazed down upon me. I snatched off my goggles and wiped my forehead.

“Oh, Anstruther,” I said. “I forgot you were there.” The quiet computer engineer had been moved from department to department as each officer in charge heard of her competence and demanded her time. At present, the head of sick bay was the lucky supervisor who benefited from her services. “Have we done our work? Is the device ready to assist patients in need of physiotherapy?”

She nodded toward the console, which was calibrated to read gestures as well as receive vocal input or key taps. It whirred to life. Lights on the screen that had been red or orange changed to restful green and blue.

“It’s fine now. I can incorporate it into the new med program.”

“What makes it new?” I asked, unfolding myself from my cubbyhole.

“It’s being tested here on the
Bonchance
before being used across the fleet. It’s part of an allover wellness regimen for each crewmember. If you need medical treatment, it automatically cross-schedules you for appointments and reserves time on the appropriate equipment. The duty rosters are updated to accommodate them. It sets alarms and sends reminders to your message box.”

I nodded approval.

“Better than relying upon memory. I know when I become engrossed I forget appointments all the time. The pocket secretary I use at home is equipped with an intolerably loud alarm to get me places on time.”

Dee plucked the repair tool out of my hand and placed it in the rolling box. All the flaps on top snapped shut. I presume that the nanites had all gone back to their designated pigeonhole.

“Good work, lieutenant. You are dismissed for today. I will be certain to send you a reminder message and an alert siren to remind you to return later.”

I laughed again. Dee did have a sense of humor.

“I will be here. I must run. I would like to read my mail and tidy up before bed. I will see you tomorrow,” I said to Anstruther.

“By the way, Thomas,” she asked shyly, always charmingly reluctant to use my first name, “how many nanites
does
it take to change a light bulb?”

“I don’t know,” I said, with a grin. “I lost count after the first million.”

Sacrificing an hour or two of sleep time, I checked the replies to my entries about the latest round of readings, not mentioning the secondary outcome of being deprived of my free hours. My fellow scientists were divided on the logic behind my new form of divination. A few were for it, several were against it, and a few excoriated me for frivolousness. The latter I considered to be much more a badge of honor than a disgrace.

Beneath those entries, though, were countless notes from members of the Bonchance crew. I received message after despondent message not only from those whom I had disappointed, but those whom I had already given readings.

We need you to tell us what to do
, said a note from an Uctu whose scales I had read on the second day.

“That sets a very dangerous precedent
,” I replied, using a very solemn typeface to indicate my sincerity.
Please let me make it clear that I never set out to tell you what to do. I intend to amuse, nothing more. You need to set your own lives in order. Read your daily horoscopes, but go on as normal
.

Those are bunkum! Yours are much more accurate
, came an instantaneous reply from a human crew member who must have been reading the thread from her station in Communications.

That is because I have met you, and know what you want to hear. Mine are absolutely as much bunkum as the ones in the news feeds. Pray do not ask again. I do not want the captain to be unhappy. My mother would disapprove of me misusing one of her officers
, I added on a flippant note that I hoped no one would forward to Captain Naftil.

The confrontation continued in person when I went for a quick breakfast before rejoining Dee for another shift before I was expected back in Hydroponics. An ad hoc committee of would-be clients hunkered down in the open chairs at my table and glowered at me and my bowl of oatmeal.

“You can’t just cut us off without more guidance,” Veltov said. “I was just starting to get into it.”

“I must,” I said. “One of the primary underpinnings of duty is obedience.”

“We’ll protest. We’ll send a petition to the captain. I bet I could get a thousand signatures today.”

“I’d sign!” “So would I!”

“Now, now, now,” I chastised them. “Don’t be silly. Find your own oracle. Flip a coin. Write a dozen encouraging messages and program your viewpad to choose one at random when you tap an icon. These are all things you can do yourself, if you choose. You don’t need me to do it for you, really you don’t. I have enjoyed myself greatly. I hope you have. But do not become dependent upon a single form of entertainment for your self-esteem. I never do. I change enthusiasms frequently.”

Veltov looked as though she had been betrayed which, in a manner, I feared she had.

“You couldn’t give up looking at the future, could you? Not really?”

I raised my hands, palm up, in abject surrender.

“Sadly, those who know me realize that I flit from subject to subject on the wings of whim. By the time you see me next, I may have become enamored of ceiling frescoes, for all I know, and have put aside my crystal ball forever. I do not pretend to be preternaturally self-aware, but I am cognizant of my own foibles. Heavens know they cost me enough money.” I offered a self-deprecating grin, but it failed to find an appreciative audience.

My crewmates were not happy, but they, too, knew they also had no choice but to obey. Wherever I went that day, I saw reproving glances and heard muttering in corners.

I found myself wondering if I had created a mutinous situation. I thought about trying to soothe the matter, but I realized nothing I could say would make them happy.

My fellow scientists chided me on the Infogrid, saying that I had taken too large a sample for my survey, and caused the problem myself. At mess, I sat with my shoulders hunched as a bulwark against any further chastisement.

“They misunderstood me,” I told Redius at mess later that day, “and it is all my fault.”

“Miscalculation,” he said, with some sympathy. “But language going well.”

“Am I?” I asked, then switched to Uctu. “I am giving it all my best efforts.”

“In all of the spare time that you have remaining,” Redius said in the same language, laughing. “You are doing well, but you have such a heavy accent!”

“I will work on defeating it,” I said.