Titan (46 page)

Authors: Ben Bova

BOOK: Titan

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The Aftermath	Privateers
As on a Darkling Plain	Prometheans
The Astral Mirror	The Rock Rats
Battle Station	The Sam Gunn Omnibus
The Best of the Nebulas (editor)	Saturn
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two B
Challenges
Colony	The Silent War
Cyberbooks	Star Peace: Assured Survival
Escape Plus	The Starcrossed
The Green Trap	Tales of the Grand Tour
Gremlins Go Home (with Gordon R. Dickson)	Test of Fire
Titan
The Immortality Factor	To Fear the Light (with A. J. Austin)
Jupiter
The Kinsman Saga	To Save the Sun (with A. J. Austin)
Mercury
The Multiple Man	The Trikon Deception (with Bill Pogue)
Orion
Orion Among the Stars	Triumph
Orion and the Conqueror	Vengeance of Orion
Orion in the Dying Time	Venus
Out of the Sun	Voyagers
Peacekeepers	Voyagers II: The Alien Within
Powersat	Voyagers III: Star Brothers
The Precipice	The Winds of Altair

SYSTEM FAULT

Urbain stared down at her. “
Titan
Alpha actually fired its laser?”

“Yes, sir, it surely did.”

One of the engineers said, “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Dr. Urbain. We’re getting telemetry from the lander. It’s sending up continuous data on its internal condition. Everything’s working fine.”

“But it will not uplink data from its sensors.”

“That’s the one glitch,” the engineer admitted.

Urbain glared at him. “This glitch, as you put it, makes
Titan Alpha
useless, pointless, stupid.”

Returning his glare without blinking, the engineer insisted, “I think it’s the central computer. Some kind of error in the programming. Everything is fine in the lander except for the data uplink. For some reason it’s not sending data back to us. The sensors seem to be working as designed, but the vehicle is not uplinking the data it’s collecting. It’s got to be a computer glitch.”

“In other words,” Urbain said coldly, “you are telling me that the patient is in fine condition, except that she is catatonic.”

This is a work of fiction. All the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

TITAN

Edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Tor
^®is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

eISBN 9781429910620

First eBook Edition : February 2011

First Edition: March 2006

First Mass Market Edition: March 2007