Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer) (41 page)

“Don't
look at me. I don't have a clue,” she said.

“Come
on ladies let's get a move on,” Irons said from behind the shuttle. The larger
sentients walked around the shuttle. Tinker Bell took the direct approach under
it since she was so short. Elves did have that advantage over the larger
sentients.

They
heard her gasp. “Is that what I think it is?” The elf asked.

“What
you think what is?” Martha asked, stopping as she rounded the rear of the
craft. She stared at the meter tall object. Jen and the others bumped into her
from behind. “Hey watch it!” she said looking over her shoulder reprovingly at
them.

“Then
don't stop quick like that dummy,” Jen growled. She looked over Martha's
shoulder and was arrested by the sight. “Is that what I think it is?” she asked
excitedly.

“Yup,”
Irons said smiling.

“How
did... where did you get the materials?” she asked.

“Here
and there. And well, apparently Blur's audit turned up some bits and pieces of
equipment that weren't worth salvaging. I talked him into letting me make
this,” Irons said waving.

“Class
one right?” Martha asked as they spread out around the replicator. It was a
meter high and about two meters in diameter. Basically an octagon on its eight
sided face. The top had a hinged lid. An LCD monitor and keyboard were sticking
up on armatures from one of the eight faces. A robotic arm was tucked into one
face.

He
shook his head. “I couldn't get a class two. Sorry. Didn't have the material.
Besides, if I'd made it you'd of had a heck of a time getting it through the
ship to where ever you want it. This one's going to be a pain in the ass as it
is,” he said waving to the replicator.

“Can
we really make anything with it?” Regua asked, true hands reverently touching
the lid.

“Not
quite,” Irons said. “You're still restricted to the basics. But this does have
one additional feature. It has a scanning feature. So you can scan objects and
replicate them. As long as they aren't on the restricted list of course.”

“Cool,”
Jen said. She'd read about that. Only a few replicator classes had that
feature. Something about proprietary IP rights or something. She wasn't sure.

“So
we can have it replicate anything it scans? I mean if it's simple?” Tinker Bell
asked, hopping up onto the lid of the replicator and looking down into its
clear window.

The
admiral shook his head. “Not quite. Simple yes. But if it's on the restricted
list it will balk at replicating it. If you try to do an end run around that or
try to force it then the replicator will lock down or self destruct.”

“Ouch,”
Regua said wincing. Her upper arms showed uncertainty in a given situation.
“Can they not be disabled?”

The
admiral frowned and then shook his head grimly. “Sorry, no. Programmed into the
design.
Any
attempt to disable the security features and you are left
with a lump of useless scrap.”

“Oh.”

“I
had a kid try to replicate a stunner on the Destiny. I had just finished
replacing their replicators...” he waved the explanation away. “Suffice to say
he screwed it up so bad I had to rebuild it.” He held up his index finger in
warning, voice firm. “So do not under any circumstances try to replicate
something on the restricted list. Or try to get around the locks. Bad things
happen.” The girls all nodded.

“You
said we need keys for some of the more important parts?” Fara asked. She too
was looking at the replicator in awe. She'd been too busy going around the ship
rebuilding food replicators to really pay attention to what the admiral had
been up to the past week. Now she knew.

Irons
had been with her of course, he'd run her ragged... as usual. He had each of
them trained on how to repair or rebuild a replicator now. What he couldn't
give them was the security keys or the initialization key sequence. They were hard
wired into him.

“With
this you can make basic parts for the ship. I've uploaded a list to you and to
the chief. Check it out. Also with this and the food replicators you can make
basic things for trade with others. I mean with other ships or planets.”

“Cool.”

“Fortunately
we're only moving this monster through that wall, so we're lucky,” Irons said,
pointing to the wall nearby. They looked at it and then back to him. He smiled.
“The chief is running power lines and plumbing now. You'll have to fab up tanks
for raw material of course. I'll help you there and help you plumb them if I'm
not too busy. The blueprints are in the net so if I do get swamped with another
project you can hopefully handle it on your own.”

“If
we can't we can call in the chief or you admiral,” Martha said with a nod.

The
admiral nodded. “Correct. I suggest you get a team in to do the grunt work. And
have a couple of welders handle the finished welding. Kiev has a good team of
welders now and they can inspect their welds when they are done.”

“Cool.”

“That's
it then. Any questions ladies?”

Martha
looked at the others. Tinker Bell looked interested. “Can we test the scanning
feature?” she asked. She sounded eager. He smiled. He would have been
disappointed if she hadn't been eager.

“Sure,”
he said. He went over to his shuttle and came back with a coffee mug. “Let's do
something simple.”

He
pressed the open button as the elf hopped off. She got an extra spring board
lift and managed a back flip before landing. She looked over her shoulder to
the replicator as a little gas escaped from it.

“Now,
you place the object into the center of the chamber like so,” he said, setting
the cup down inside. “It can only scan things that it can replicate in its
chamber.”

“Okay,
what about bigger things?”

“You
are limited on size. Anything bigger and you need to break it down somehow.
Take it apart into sub assemblies.”

“Okay,”
Martha nodded, crossing her arms.

“Now.
You close the lid and the computer will run a series of scans.” The lid closed
and there was a flash of red light.

“What
did it do?” Tinker Bell asked looking up at the chamber.

“It
used a series of sensors to get an external scan of the object. It has visual
sensors and a laser scanner. The laser bounces off the object forming a three
dimensional model. It used spectrographic analysis to study the object as well.
Now it's going to stage four.”

“Which
is?”

Irons
smiled as the group huddled closer to the window to see. The elf jumped back up
onto the lid to get a better look.

“Which
is inserting nanites into the object and tasting its structural composition.”

Fara
hid a shiver. That part she didn't like. She watched the chamber glow blue and
then after a moment the light winked out and the green lights came on.

“And
we're done. The computer has taken the various sensor readings and overlaid
them into a meta file. You just need to select the name for the object and
place it in a folder in the database.”

“But
it's already labeled,” Regua said, looking at the control screen. The others
looked at it. Indeed the screen had the image of the cup in wireframe form
slowly rotating and the label coffee mug under it. They looked at Irons.

“The
database recognized the object,” Irons said nodding. “I told you, if it is in
the database it will recognize it. Now if that had been a cup with ornate
features on it or of some other design it would have said the same thing but
then had an alpha numeric designation with it. Or the date.”

“Oh.”

“So...”
He looked at the elf. “Excuse me here,” he said, holding out his arm. She
looked at it and then up to him. He used his right arm to touch his shoulder.
She nodded and swarmed up his arm to his shoulder. She held onto his ear as he
opened the lid. “You'll get a better view from up here I believe,” Irons
murmured.

“And
I'll be out of the way?” she asked.

“Not
at all. I just didn't want to wear you out hopping up and down so much,” he
replied as he took the cup out and then closed the lid.

“Now,
I've got some plastic and ceramic in the small hopper here,” he pointed his
foot to a small barrel connected to the replicator by a pair of hoses. “The
ceramic is a slurry. Now I select the object, enter the number of copies I
want...” he tapped at the controls for a moment. “Now If I want to manually set
up the tray I can. But in this case it did it for me. Then I hit enter and
print.”

The
replicator started to glow blue again. They looked down inside to see the cups
growing out of seemingly nothing. It was a little foggy in the chamber. They
knew that was the nanite matrix passing the raw material to the builders. In
less than ten seconds the fabrication was done. The replicator dinged success.

“Cool,”
Fara said with a nod as the light changed to green. “It can break stuff down
again?” she asked. “We really don't need more cups,” she said.

“Oh
sorry,” Irons said. He tapped at the controls and hit enter. The chamber glowed
red this time and the cups dissolved.

“Gone,”
he said when the light changed back to green.

“Very
cool,” the Veraxin chittered.

“True,”
Tinker Bell said. “I did think that a replicator scavenging for its own
building material was inefficient though,” she said thoughtfully.

Irons
pursed his lips as he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “You are
correct. Most industrial centers use dedicated systems for that. Scavengers or
molecular furnaces are what they are called in the business. They use robots
and industrial machinery to break an object down into small enough parts for
nanites to then take over.”

“Um...
no offense but what does size have to do with nanites?” Jen asked. Irons tapped
the chamber meaningfully. Her eyes were drawn to it. Finally she got it and her
eyes widened. “Oh! Duh. Sorry, slow today. I forgot. Nanites are supposed to be
in a controlled environment at all times,” she said with a nod of understanding.

“Right.
Any other questions?”

“When
do we get it for real?” Martha asked.

“When
we're finished with the compartment it's going to be housed in. Ask the chief.
I don't know,” he said with a shrug. “I was busy doing other things.”

“Okay.”

“Have
fun ladies,” he said, smiling as Tinker Bell hopped back down onto the lid and
then looked up at him. She bowed. He bowed back. He nodded to the others as he
left. He snorted as he turned; they all had eyes only for the replicator.
Typical. If they hadn't been coveting the thing then he would have been
disappointed.

Numiria's
first sleeper case went well at first. However the patient's vitals take a nose
dive as they begin flushing out the radioactive toxins. They attempted to
return her to her stasis pod only to discover it was irradiated as well. When
the patient flat lined and didn't recover despite their best efforts they gave
up in hopeless frustration.

She
called the time of death and then reported to a nervous Cora. Cora is obviously
disappointed. She patted the depressed doctor's arm. “You tried your best. A
clean death... I don't think we could ask for more,” she murmured, more
supportive than ever.

The
doctor mulled over the situation in her quarters later that night. She realized
she was in a funk. The next day she sensed the same from her staff. They were
leery about trying again. She couldn't have that. What was the expression? Get
back onto the horse. They needed to try again, not freeze themselves with doubt
and uncertainty. That killed a patient as often as misguided efforts did.
Finally she called them in for a meeting.

Light
Touch sat on the edge of her desk, kicking her feet back and forth. Chilly
huddled in a corner, arms wrapped around himself. Ezri looked down, not meeting
anyone's eyes. Numiria sighed. “Look. I know we're afraid. I know...” She
sighed and her ears went down. “No one wanted that to work out better than I
did. We all tried our best. But fighting the gods of death isn't easy. You all
know this. We're going to try again,” she said firmly. They looked up at that.
“We are not going to let this stop us from trying again. Not now, not ever,”
she said vehemently.

Reluctantly
the staff looked at each other. Light Touch turned to look at her fellow
student and then to the staff. “Doctor Numiria is correct. No matter what we
will endeavor, we must continue. We must learn from this and then move on. We
owe that to our lost friend.”

“Exactly
right,” Chilly said, arms opening up. The Veraxin signaled first degree
agreement and determination. “We must continue the path we started. We must
learn and move on.”

Numiria's
ears rose slowly. She looked from one student to the other and tasted their
determination. Finally she nodded, her tail rising. “We will, starting now.
Those of you on duty check your charges. I'm going to pull up the records from
yesterday and we're going to go through them, event by event. We'll see exactly
what went wrong. No blame, but we will
damn
well learn from this.”