"Faulty feedback for a patch of our shell reflectors focused on C-8," Timberlake said. "The system started to oscillate and that threw the overload switches, left us wide open."
"Another design failure," Bickel sneered.
And such a simple problem, Bickel thought. The hull curve acted like a lens to focus energy within the ship... unless reflector and shell shielding systems compensated.
Prudence traced the line of the remaining telltales. "C-8's on a line with that robot stores section you raided. Is that all it takes to throw the ship off balance?"
"Gives you a wonderful feeling of confidence in the Tin Egg's design, doesn't it," Bickel said.
They didn't warn me! she thought. They cheated. Calculated emergencies, they said, just enough to keep a fine edge on your reaction abilities. Reaction abilities!
"You overcompensated, Prue," Timberlake said. "Make minimal adjustments to avoid oscillation while you hunt for the source of your trouble. You had sensor telltales flaring right out through the ship to pinpoint where you needed shielding reinforcement."
I panicked, she thought. "I guess I let myself get too tired." Even as she spoke she sensed how lame the excuse sounded. '
I was too intent doing the job on Flattery, she thought. I had him headed for a nice corner where he'd have to fight his way out... and I missed the ship trouble until it was almost ready to wreck us.
It occurred to her then to wonder if one of the crew had her as a "special project" to keep her abilities toned up... on edge.
"Prue, you've got to remember that when the overload switches go, the computer automatics are out of the circuit," Bickel said. "This thing was designed to be brought back into line by a conscious intelligence - one of us or an OMC."
"Oh, shut up!" she flared. "I made a mistake. I know it. I won't do it again."
"No damage was done," Timberlake said.
"I don't need you to defend me!" she snapped. And she thought: No damage! Nothing was harmed except one of the crew - me! She pressed her hands together to still their trembling. We're sitting ducks for any real emergency. We can't turn back without the risk of a runaway dive into Sol or becoming another of her wandering comets. We can't go on unless we solve the unsolvable.
Take it easy, Prue," Flattery soothed. "We probably put you on the big board too soon after getting you out of hyb."
Thanks for the excuse! she thought.
Flattery glanced around the room, seeing the poised silence of Bickel and Timberlake-both of them scorched by Prue's anger. Bickel slid out of his couch, secured a set of test leads in the clip at his left shoulder. A multimeter could be seen protruding from his breast pocket. Timberlake was refining the hull temperature adjustments, putting the system back into the computer circuits.
Flattery returned his attention to Prudence. She shouldn't have panicked, he thought. Not the type. She has a woman's wide perspective and confidence in her intuition. She should be better at the big board than any of us. Is she under greater strain? Does she know something I don't?
We understand synergy to mean the fortuitous working together of a set of components which we have assembled in our attempt to achieve artificial consciousness. Working together, the components produce more than...
IT REQUIRED ALMOST twenty minutes for Prudence to regain her composure. By that time, Timberlake had run a check-list survey on every hyb-tank complex. He did it with a compulsive determination that none of them misunderstood. His function as life-systems engineer had been ignited.
Flattery let the thing run its course and a bit longer. Bickel was fretting to get back to his work, but Timberlake needed this role reinforcement. And Prudence needed recovery time.
Bickel finally had enough waiting.
"Can we get back to work?" he demanded.
"I can take the board now, Tim," Flattery said.
Timberlake studied his instruments. "Okay. On the count."
They shifted the board, and Timberlake sat up, a sharp ache across his back telling him how tense he had been.
"Let's get back to the shop," Bickel said.
"How far along are you?" Prudence asked.
"Barely beginning," Bickel said. "Let's get cracking."
"Is a man just a machine's way of making another machine?" she asked.
"Just like Sam Butler's hen," Timberlake said. "Philosophy 1."
"Philosophy some other time, huh?" Bickel suggested.
"Just a minute," she said. "By attempting to reproduce an artificial consciousness, we're monkeying with variation of variability. Now, there's a field that all good little divines" - she nodded toward Flattery - "and most scientists have agreed by a compact of silence is the exclusive territory of God in Heaven and God's handiwork on earth - the genes."
"Yeah," Bickel said. "That's great. Let's solve it some other time."
"You still don't get it, none of you," she said.
Bickel glared at her. "Don't I? Okay, Prue. Let's strip off the fancy verbiage. We're damned if we solve this problem and dead if we don't. Is that what you were trying to say?"
"Bravo!" she said, and turned to look at Flattery.
Flattery scowled at his board, pointedly ignoring her.
"You see, Raj?" she asked.
She can't possibly know my instructions, Flattery thought. She might guess, but she can't know. And certainly she couldn't stop me if I had to blow us all to Kingdom Come.
"Yes, I see," Flattery said. "Don't underestimate John Lon Bickel."
At the sound of his name, Bickel's head came up. He stared at Flattery's profile, seeing the way the man's sensitive fingers moved like spider legs across the big board.
"You're so very clever, Raj," she said. "And so damn stupid!"
"That's enough of that!" Bickel snapped, turning to glare at Prudence. "We'd better clear a little air, here. We're on our own, Prue. You've no idea how much on our own we are. We have to depend on each other because we sure as hell can't depend on the Tin Egg! We can't afford to snap and bite at each other."
Oh, can't we now, she thought.
"We're trapped on a ship that contains only one top-drawer mechanism," Bickel said. "We've only one thing that functions smoothly and beautifully the way it should - our computer. Everything else works as though it'd been designed and built by six left-handed apes."
"Bickel thinks this was all deliberate," Timberlake said.
Prudence caught herself in an involuntary glance at Flattery, forced her attention away from Bickel and onto Timberlake. This is far too early for Bickel to suspect, she thought.
Timberlake avoided her eyes. He looked like a small boy who'd been caught stealing jam.