Part 30 (1/2)

Matt jotted a discrete number with a fine-point marker on each liberated item. It wouldn't do to get

confused which parts came from where.Eleven not-entirely-destroyed computers had been recovered from the Consensus. Not one functioned. All had, presumably, been damaged by the fire. Swelk's computer worked-but its memory was filled with alien movies. While Swelk's was their only operational alien computer, it was too precious to tinker with. This could be their last chance to repair the other computers. Who knew what information those contained?

Of course, few of the computer components and none of the masersat parts appeared broken. Kyle imagined a 1907 engineer faced with an inoperative modern computer. If the only electronics I'd ever seen used vacuum tubes, what sense could I make of integrated circuits? Would ruined chips even look damaged? Heat can destroy electronics without melting the parts.

Which reduced them to crossing fingers and swapping components.

He tried not to consider the many permutations of parts subst.i.tutions ahead, as he soldered scavenged,

same-labeled parts into the satellite. Whatever the international monstrosity that eventually arose to examine the masersat . . . if and when they got their act together, and actual research resumed . . . he'd eventually suggest that they try chip subst.i.tutions. Perhaps by then he'd have an online tutorial explaining everything.

Life was never that cooperative, though, was it?

CHAPTER 35.

”Hi, Stinky. Yo, Smelly.” Boggy vegetation squished beneath their slowly shuffling, broad webbed feet. Good. Swelk had fretted about the unnatural metal decking her friends suffered aboard s.h.i.+p. The animals chewed contentedly on synthesized sludge, ma.s.sive jaws sliding and grinding in a totally alien motion. Despite widespread suspicions that Krulchukor bioconverters employed nanotech, no one-certainly not Kyle-would endanger the Girillians by opening one for inspection. ”Do they brush you guys enough?”

”Perhaps you could give the other guests a chance, sir.” A zoo guard politely indicated the serpentine queue behind Kyle. Plenty of tourists were glued to the railing, but, Kyle guessed, none spoke so familiarly to the main attractions. ”This exhibit is quite popular.”

He moved along rather than argue. Seeing Smelly and Stinky was how he communed with his dead friend. He loved the cats, but a.s.sociated them more with Dar. He drifted through the rest of Girillia House, murmuring as he went. None of these critters had bonded like the swampbeasts with Swelk; none affected him as deeply.

He found an empty bench. Swelk, he thought, at least one puzzle that had us stymied is solved. That reflection yielded a bit of the solace he'd sought unsuccessfully in Girillia House.

The computer Matt had repaired with masersat parts might-in twenty years? More?-lead to amazing breakthroughs. It wasn't a cookbook for fusion or interstellar travel, but it offered clues: operating procedures and detailed parts inventories. The recovered files, in Kyle's belief, held more promise than the charred stars.h.i.+p surrendered to UN custody.

The how of the mother s.h.i.+p holo-projection had gnawed at him long after the fact of the hologram became obvious. Why would the aliens have such equipment with them? Discovering the masersats to be cobbled-together devices had only deepened the mystery.

But now, extrapolating from newly recovered Krulchukor files, he had an answer.

The alien star drive, its physical principles still maddeningly obscure, was inoperative deep within a star's gravity well. Stars.h.i.+ps used solar sails to exit solar systems-sailing conserved He3 for interstellar travel. In settled solar systems, big laser cannons rapidly propelled stars.h.i.+ps to where their drives could engage. In low-tech solar systems (which, in practice, meant any system not colonized by Krulirim), s.h.i.+pboard emergency gear included kits to build laser boosters. Seed a convenient, sunlight-drenched,

silicon-rich asteroid with nanomachines. Wait a bit for semiconductor lasers, and the solar cells to power them, to grow. Voila!The moon's surface was one-fifth silicon by ma.s.s. Without an atmosphere, solar energy was abundant on the dayside.

If Swelk's translator had correctly converted units of measure, an emergency booster kit would expand into an about-kilometer-squared patch. An individual laser was a silicon structure only millimeters in

size, but a full-grown booster contained billions. Inventory records showed several kits had been taken from s.h.i.+p's stores.The evidence was entirely circ.u.mstantial, but Kyle was sure he finally understood the mother-s.h.i.+p trick.

Just as Grelben's engineers had kludged masersats from onboard equipment, they, or perhaps Rualf's special-effects team, must have hacked into the booster-kit software. Change the aiming logic to track a

moon-orbiting radar buoy instead of a receding stars.h.i.+p. Add an animation model of the movie-prop vessel to be projected. (Model, as well, the occasional holographic auxiliary s.h.i.+p going to or from the mother s.h.i.+p-an effective bit of misdirection.) Schedule the hand-off of projection duties from laser patch to laser patch, to compensate for the moon's rotation and to mimic the mother s.h.i.+p's purported orbital path. For a species with centuries of computer experience, he guessed the reprogramming was a snap.

Memories of Swelk occupied his walk to the Metro station and the subway ride itself, reminiscences intermingled with hopes for a new beginning. In a West Wing waiting room, he tried to focus on the latter.

”Sorry, I'm running late. Crisis du jour.” Britt had appeared in the doorway. ”Much simpler than crises we've handled. Come in. Can I get you something?”

”Water, thanks.”

”Carl, two Perriers.” Once the earnest intern nodded acknowledgment, Britt led the way to his office.

”How's my favorite diplomat?”

”Fine.” He took a chilled bottle. ”Busy.” A workaholic, not that I'm ent.i.tled to criticize.

Britt draped his suit coat over a chair. ”It's ominous when you get terse and tongue-tied on me. What now?”

”Good news, actually.” Kyle took a photo from his s.h.i.+rt pocket. ”Matt's team repaired a recovered

Krulchukor computer. Unlike Swelk's, it wasn't filled with movies and a translation program.” They'd have been out of luck, though, without Swelk's computer to translate for it.Britt raised an eyebrow. ”After all these years, they fixed it. Interesting.”Admit nothing. ”Good things come to he who waits.”

”We'll let that lie. What's on your always active mind?”Had there been an emphasis on ”lie”? ”It was a crewman's computer. The maintenance files should be very helpful in recreating Krulchukor technology. Case in point.” Kyle explained the mother-s.h.i.+p illusion. ”It's nice to know why the mother s.h.i.+p was off in lunar orbit.”

An intercom buzzed. ”Your next appointment is here, sir.”

Britt picked up the photo. ”For someone bearing good news, you don't seem happy.”

Nothing would be gained by citing the maddeningly vague reference in a recovered file to Clean Slate.