A Larger Universe (24 page)

He watched for a while, trying to make sense of what he
saw.  The pool was as crowded as a pool on Earth in a hot summer day.  He
counted fifty-one Nesu of all sizes swimming in the water and another fifteen
visible out of the water.  He couldn't see the smaller pools above the lake,
where more could be seeking privacy.

Now I understand why she needs the other chamber fixed.
 

In the same relative location as the hatch he had used to
enter the second compartment, he found another hatch.  Opening this let him
into another compartment under a pond, as dead as the first. 
Perhaps these
ponds circle this entire deck of the ship.

He walked around the pond's base to the next hatch.  The
next chamber was also dead, the one after was alive, the one after that dead. 
He decided he had seen enough and started back. 

They have a space and a population problem, both caused
by the ship's deterioration.  I wonder if fixing all of this would make them
grateful to a human.
  He smiled to himself. 
No, that would be too much
to expect.

That afternoon, he had his first guild meeting.  It didn't
start well.  No one, not even his original two assistants, would meet his eyes
or talk to him.  Finally, he decided to ignore their attitudes and proceed with
the work.  Nothing else mattered, anyway. 

He promoted Sanos and Vent to journeymen.  No other guild
would have promoted someone so young, but that could hardly be an argument in
his guild.  The guild only had two projects, and he wanted to be involved in
both, but he didn't want to manage them.  He would rather spend his time
programming and problem solving than making lists and being certain everything
got done.  He took the more experienced apprentices and assigned them into two
teams led by his new journeymen, as he had done before.  The remainder he also
split and assigned to the teams, but they weren't required to work, just follow
along and learn.  The ship had so many problems, he hoped he would soon have enough
trained people to make multiple teams. 

He decided to get Sanos started on the pool repair first. 
After a trip to the pool deck, Sanos's group set to work picking the hardware
they would need, and Tommy took Vent to the bridge.  The two of them opened the
spare navigation computer and found what Tommy expected:  the parts had been
cannibalized. 

"There's no point in leaving this empty box here,"
Tommy said.  "Have your team tear it apart and stack the pieces out of the
way.  Leave the cables where they are, though."

Vent looked at his feet, hesitated, then looked up at
Tommy.  "Why are you removing the old computer?  You left the cases in
place before and put your new computers inside."

"A question!”  Tommy said, smiling.  “Maybe there is
hope for you!"  When Vent's eyes widened, Tommy laughed.  "I want you
to ask questions.  Thanks.

"For the hydroponics installation, I wanted to show how
much smaller the new computers were.  Here, what matters is speed, and, if
someone is interested in relative size, the old computer will be beside the new
one.  Let's go down and pick what we'll be using.  I've got something special
in mind."

In the warehouse, he found Sanos preparing to move a stack
of boxes to the elevator.

"Sanos, before you take those, pick three identical
sets of equipment and take those up, too.  On the sub-chamber's far side is a
hatch.  Beyond that hatch are other maintenance rooms under lords' living
areas.  Ignore the working ponds and get the equipment set up for three
additional ponds.  Walk quietly when you're passing through an active
chamber."  He smiled.  "Four will make a much bigger splash than
one."

For the navigation computer, he decided if faster was good,
much faster would be better.  He chose a multi-processor server PC with the fastest
chipset he could find in the inventory.  A second identical system would be the
backup.

By day's end, all of the computers had been moved up the
elevators, and the electrical artisans were installing power on the two decks
and pulling cable.  So far, the electricians' guild hadn't given him any
problems. 
Maybe they are enjoying having something to do.

This time, Tommy took one of his apprentices and watched
where the electricians were installing the cable.  From the books he had been
reading, he suspected the length of cable they were installing would be too
long for a good signal.  He wanted to know where to install routers and
switches along the way.  Every place he put a router or switch box, he would
attach a wireless access point.

The security in this place is nonexistent
, Tommy
thought, as he found an identical "hidden" storage compartment under
the ladder leading down from the bridge.  A press and push opened the
compartment, revealing a circuitry block identical to the one stored under the
track controller room.  An hour later, Seth gave him a stack of paper listing
the programs in the block, and the block was returned to storage. 

When the hardware and power were installed, Tommy sent his
apprentices to the pond chambers and began the task he had to do alone: 
understand and replace the old programs. 

First he made certain the operating structure was the same
as in the programs he had worked with before, then he concentrated on what the
programs were doing.  The computational section was the easiest to duplicate,
and he decided to postpone his curiosity about the meaning of the mathematical
formulae and do a straightforward conversion from the old language to Java. 
The sections of the program that communicated with the console on the deck above
were also familiar.  He would replace them with something better as he had done
before. 

One device driver was new.  This driver sent information
along cables leading to the central column using a set of signal generators
different from those in hydroponics or the targeting computers.  In a process
that always required operator intervention, the computer displayed a solution
on the bridge console based on the parameters entered and waited for the
console operator to confirm before passing a command down the central column. 
He was sure the command could be replicated, but that could wait.  His computer
just had to display the same results for the first test.  The signal generators
could be added later.

Even taking a few short breaks to tweak the hydroponics
programs for use in the living area computer--a pond is not so different from a
hydroponics tank--Tommy was ready in the fifth week for a parallel test with
the old navigation computer.  However, his request for access to the bridge
console was denied.  Ull's explained that a human was not allowed to sit at the
consoles.  When he asked Ull to assign a lord to run the tests for him, Ull's
reaction was an undulating whistle.  No lord would work as a human's
assistant.  The first test must wait until the first real transit.

The lords were far from ready to leave.  After spending half
of the six weeks since their arrival salvaging
The Extended Claws
, the
ship had proceeded by in-system drive to their original destination, an oxygen
and water planet.  They needed several more weeks to harvest biological
products from the planet's tropical forests.

The delay gave Tommy the time to complete his other
assignment, and his teams soon were ready to start the pumps in all four of the
lords' living areas.  From the beginning, he had decided to take this a lot
farther than Lord Ull expected.  Doing four rather than one chamber was part of
that.  In addition, the team worked with the other guilds to install the
biological filters, grease the pumps, and perform all the other mechanical
maintenance needed for systems that had been turned off for many years. 

To live again, the ponds needed a supply of water, fish, and
plants.  The water would be supplied from storage tanks at the turn of a
computer-controlled valve.  The fish and plants were the lords' responsibility,
or so another guildmaster had told him.

The morning after he completed the navigation programs, he
told Sanos to turn on the water and start the pumps in all the chambers. 

Two days later, all the lakes and pools were full, and the
pumps sent water plunging down the waterfalls.

The call to Lord Ull was his first since he had been told
how.  He pushed back the panel in his wall and entered Ull's number. 
"Lord Ull, may I speak with you?"

For a moment he heard no answer, then, over the faint sound
of falling water "Yes."

"This is Tommy.  Uhh, the feral human."

"I know who you are.  What do you want?"

"Would it be possible for you to meet me at the living
chamber we have been working on?  We are ready to show it to you."

"Yes."

He found Ull waiting at the entry. 
Why didn't she go
inside without me
, he wondered.  Opening the hatch released a rush of warm,
steamy air that lacked the odor of plants and fish, but was, otherwise, much
like his first experience in the entrance of Lord Ull's chamber.

"You have already filled the lake!" Ull exclaimed.

Tommy waited by the entrance while Ull jumped into the water
and swam to the far side.  She climbed up the hill and disappeared into one
after another of the chambers where the smaller pools were hidden.  He lost
sight of her until she dived into the waterfall pool from the hillside and swam
back to the entrance.

"I did not expect this,” Ull said.  “You have done your
work well."

"There is more," Tommy replied.  He led the way
down the corridor, past the occupied chamber, to the next chamber they had
repaired. 

"What is this?"

Again he waited inside the entrance while she made her
inspection, and again he asked her to follow when she was done.  When she had
seen the fourth chamber, she seemed to be waiting for him to lead her to
another and another. 

"That is all, for now," he said.

Before she could respond, they heard a shout from the
direction they had come.  They had failed to close the doors!  With Lord Ull in
the lead, they hurried toward a multitude of voices.

Nesu packed the corridor and open hatches.  Over the crowd
noise were the sounds of bodies hitting the water.

A Nesu in the back of the crowd noticed Ull's approach. 
"Director Ull, are you responsible for this miracle?"

The lords behind the speaker turned in a wave.

"Yes, I and this human you see behind me," Ull
replied.  "With the council's permission and support, of course."

She gave me credit.  Why did she do that?

"Who will be assigned to these chambers?" asked
another.

"We have not decided,” Ull answered.  “First, plants
and fish must be added."

This brought a chorus of voices volunteering for the task.

"Will other chambers be repaired?" asked another
voice.

Ull glanced at Tommy and replied, "Yes, and soon."

From behind the crowd, a voice asked, "Will the mating
chambers be repaired?"

This question brought complete silence.  From his position
behind Lord Ull, Tommy could see the lords glance at each other, their muzzles
turning first one way, then another--if they'd been human, he would have sworn
the looks were speculative--then all eyes turned to Ull to wait for her reply.

"I am sure they will be," Ull told them.

Tommy added another emotional sign to his understanding of
The People.  If an undulating whistle indicated laughter, a shrill single note
indicated pure joy.  The combined whistles of the crowd in the passageway
forced him to cover his ears.

When Ull could be heard over the noise, she leaned her head
down to his.  "Until the navigation test, this is most important.  I will
send you a list of compartments."  She touched his shoulder, for the first
time except in anger.  "This was a good surprise, but do not do it again. 
We agreed you would tell me what you are planning before you do it."

"Yes, Lord Ull," was all he found to say.

When he got the new list, the number of dead living areas
above the Commons was a surprise, and Tommy worried about his inventory of
computers.  The first thing to do, he decided, was change the programs so one
computer could monitor multiple compartments.  One computer for each deck would
be enough, with a second for backup if the first one failed. 

Tommy's journeymen and apprentices were soon working on most
of the ship's upper levels.  In an attempt to stop the constant challenges from
lords and warriors both, he had a distinctive dark orange tunic created for
everyone in his guild to wear.  An orange tunic became the sign that another
living or mating compartment was being repaired.  The challenges became
greetings and shrill whistles of pleasure from the lords, and the warriors
learned to leave them alone.

#   #   #

Lord Ull's call for him to come to the bridge was a welcome
break from what had come to feel like, after all, a glorified plumbing job. 

The elevator door opened to a hum of activity.  A lord sat
at every console.  Others moved from station to station.  As Tommy stepped out
of the compartment, he was met by the shortest lord he had seen outside the
living areas. 

"Director Ull has instructed me to bring you to
her."

This lord is barely taller than I am.  Maybe the lords
have an apprentice program, too.

Lord Ull sat on an elevated podium near the navigation
station.

"Are you ready for the test?" she asked.

"I can be in ten minutes," Tommy replied.

"Good.  We will begin calculations to leave this system
in thirty minutes.  I will give you the same instructions I give the
navigator.  Get ready."

What exactly is Lord Ull's position on this ship?  Could
she be the captain?
  He lifted the trapdoor and hurried down the stairs.  A
moment later, he had booted the primary and backup computer and was waiting for
the operating systems to load.