But next time it resets, the signal down the line looks wrong. Triggers a diagnostic run in the next one down, and then the next one down. Whole network starts blinking like Christmas. Too many errors on the network and it fails closed, takes down the whole grid. And then you got us going through checking each one by hand. With flashlights and the supervisor chewing our nuts.”
“That’s… that can’t be right,” she said. “Seriously? It could have shut down the
grid
?”
“I know, right?” Ren said, smiling. “And all it would take is change the design so it don’t fit in if you got it wrong. But they never do. A lot of what we do is like that, boss. We try to catch the little ones before they get big. Some things, you get them wrong, it’s nothing. Some things, and it’s a big mess.”
The words felt like a church bell being struck. They resonated. She was that fault, that error. She didn’t know what she was doing, not really, and she’d get away with it. She’d pass. Until she didn’t, and then everything would fall apart. Her throat felt tighter. She almost wished she hadn’t said anything.
She was a brownout buffer pointed the wrong way. A flaw that was easy to overlook, with the potential to wreck everything.
“For the others… don’t take them harsh. Blowing off steam, mostly. Not you so much as it’s anything. Fear-biting.”
“Fear?”
“Sure,” he said. “Everyone on this boat’s scared dry. Try not to show it, do the work, but we all getting nightmares. Natural, right?”
“What are they afraid of?” she asked.
Behind her the door cycled open and shut. A man said something in a language she didn’t know. Ren tilted his head, and she had the sick, sinking feeling that she’d done something wrong. She hadn’t acted normal, and she didn’t know what her misstep was.
“Ring,” he said at last. “It’s what killed Eros. Could have killed Mars. All that weird stuff it did on Venus, no one knows what it was. Deaded that slingshot kid who went through. Half everyone thinks we should be pitching nukes at it, other half thinks we’d only piss it off. We’re going out as deep as anyone ever has just so we can look in the devil’s eye, and Stanni and Solé and Bob? They’re all scared as shit of what we see in it. Me too.”
“Ah,” she said. “All right. I understand that.”
Ren tried on a smile.
“You? It don’t scare you?”
“It’s not something I think about.”
Chapter Eight: Anna
N ami and Nono left for Earth a week before Anna’s shuttle. Those last days living alone in those rooms, knowing that she would never be back—that they would never be back—was like a gentle presentiment of death: profoundly melancholy and, shamefully, a little exhilarating.
The shuttle from Europa was one of the last to join the flotilla, and it meant eighteen hours of hard burn. By the time she set foot on the deck of the UNN
Thomas Prince
, all she wanted was a bunk and twelve hours’ sleep. The young yeoman who’d been sent to greet and escort her had other plans, though, and the effort it would have taken to be rude about it was more than she could muster.
“The
Prince
is a
Xerxes
-class battleship, or what we sometimes refer to as a third-generation dreadnought,” he said, gesturing to the white ceramic-over-gel of the hangar’s interior walls. The shuttle she’d arrived on nestled in its bay looking small under the cathedral-huge arch. “We call it a third-generation battleship because it is the third redesign since the buildup during the first Earth-Mars conflict.”
Not that it had been much of a conflict, Anna thought. The Martians had made noises about independence, the UN had built a lot of ships, Mars had built a few. And then Solomon Epstein had gone from being a Martian yachting hobbyist to the inventor of the first fusion drive that solved the heat buildup and rapid fuel consumption problems of constant thrust. Suddenly Mars had a few ships that
“That’s… that can’t be right,” she said. “Seriously? It could have shut down the
grid
?”
“I know, right?” Ren said, smiling. “And all it would take is change the design so it don’t fit in if you got it wrong. But they never do. A lot of what we do is like that, boss. We try to catch the little ones before they get big. Some things, you get them wrong, it’s nothing. Some things, and it’s a big mess.”
The words felt like a church bell being struck. They resonated. She was that fault, that error. She didn’t know what she was doing, not really, and she’d get away with it. She’d pass. Until she didn’t, and then everything would fall apart. Her throat felt tighter. She almost wished she hadn’t said anything.
She was a brownout buffer pointed the wrong way. A flaw that was easy to overlook, with the potential to wreck everything.
“For the others… don’t take them harsh. Blowing off steam, mostly. Not you so much as it’s anything. Fear-biting.”
“Fear?”
“Sure,” he said. “Everyone on this boat’s scared dry. Try not to show it, do the work, but we all getting nightmares. Natural, right?”
“What are they afraid of?” she asked.
Behind her the door cycled open and shut. A man said something in a language she didn’t know. Ren tilted his head, and she had the sick, sinking feeling that she’d done something wrong. She hadn’t acted normal, and she didn’t know what her misstep was.
“Ring,” he said at last. “It’s what killed Eros. Could have killed Mars. All that weird stuff it did on Venus, no one knows what it was. Deaded that slingshot kid who went through. Half everyone thinks we should be pitching nukes at it, other half thinks we’d only piss it off. We’re going out as deep as anyone ever has just so we can look in the devil’s eye, and Stanni and Solé and Bob? They’re all scared as shit of what we see in it. Me too.”
“Ah,” she said. “All right. I understand that.”
Ren tried on a smile.
“You? It don’t scare you?”
“It’s not something I think about.”
Chapter Eight: Anna
N ami and Nono left for Earth a week before Anna’s shuttle. Those last days living alone in those rooms, knowing that she would never be back—that they would never be back—was like a gentle presentiment of death: profoundly melancholy and, shamefully, a little exhilarating.
The shuttle from Europa was one of the last to join the flotilla, and it meant eighteen hours of hard burn. By the time she set foot on the deck of the UNN
Thomas Prince
, all she wanted was a bunk and twelve hours’ sleep. The young yeoman who’d been sent to greet and escort her had other plans, though, and the effort it would have taken to be rude about it was more than she could muster.
“The
Prince
is a
Xerxes
-class battleship, or what we sometimes refer to as a third-generation dreadnought,” he said, gesturing to the white ceramic-over-gel of the hangar’s interior walls. The shuttle she’d arrived on nestled in its bay looking small under the cathedral-huge arch. “We call it a third-generation battleship because it is the third redesign since the buildup during the first Earth-Mars conflict.”
Not that it had been much of a conflict, Anna thought. The Martians had made noises about independence, the UN had built a lot of ships, Mars had built a few. And then Solomon Epstein had gone from being a Martian yachting hobbyist to the inventor of the first fusion drive that solved the heat buildup and rapid fuel consumption problems of constant thrust. Suddenly Mars had a few ships that
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