A Larger Universe (16 page)

The broadcast from Earth had provided another alternative. 
The boy in the transmission seemed to know much about Earth's computers.  The
others were honoring him for that knowledge, and he was scarcely more than an
infant.  With no guarantee that even one of the adults they planned to take
would be beneficial or even cooperative, this Tommy had seemed a lower risk,
so, without further discussion with the council, she had authorized the mission
to take the child.  Now, she had begun to wonder if she had made a mistake.

This feral human kit had grown more than a hand in height
and width at the shoulders.  He looked more like a miniature human warrior than
an artisan, and he was loose on the ship. 

Miniature warrior.

That was especially troubling, but the stories about him
must be no more than exaggerated rumors.  Only a true warrior could have done
the physical deeds attributed to him:  lifting the corner of the stable,
capturing a giant bird, and pulling a jammed hatch off its hinges. 

Instead of spending all of his time helping with the
translations, the feral installed the computers himself and recruited
discontented artisan apprentices to help.  She could not deny that this
accomplished exactly what she wanted, but the others on the council would find
it unsettling.  She found it unsettling.  The People had lived in the waters of
this ship for more than a hundred generations, and no feral human could swim in
its currents.

Still, she must support what he was doing.  His actions must
seem under her command.  If the rest of the council decided the human was out
of her control, he would be killed and she would be disciplined.  And, in spite
of her misgivings, he was accomplishing what must be done.

 She looked at the slide beside the waterfall.  She couldn't
remember the last time she had used it.  Getting her own chamber when she
joined the council had filled her with happiness.  On that first day, she must
have slithered down a hundred times.  The waves became so high, water splashed
above the seals to her entry door.

With her duties on the council came an understanding of
their true situation.  Once, every female adult had private chambers like this,
to share or not with a male.  Now, the council members alone had this
privilege, and the dead fish in Nore's pond revealed how fragile that privilege
was.

She climbed out of the water and prepared for the council
meeting, then went to the bank of elevators and down to the Sanctuary chamber,
twenty-five levels below.

She entered the Sanctuary and, after a short walk, dove into
a wide stream draining a small lake.  She was early, so she dawdled to calm her
nerves, turning over and swimming on her back, letting the sounds and colors of
her home world sooth her with their familiarity while the current took her
downstream.  This chamber, about half the size of the Commons, was reserved for
The People.  When she was young, this stream had been full of playing kits and
their parents watching over them.  Now, she often came here without seeing
anyone.  No one prevented The People from coming here.  As crowded as the
living chambers had become, they should welcome the relief the spacious
Sanctuary provided, as it did for Ull, but they did not. 

No human ever walked here.  The closest any came was to
service the substratum supporting the chamber.  If a plant needed to be moved,
one of The People dug the holes.  If a tree needed to be cut, one of The People
wielded the ax.  That had been the custom since
The People's Hand
had
been built.  The custom and The People who honored it would end if the ship
died.  That she must prevent.

Ull turned over and dived beneath the surface.  Soon she was
again floating on her back, crunching a fish held against her chest.  Best to
be contentedly full when she faced the council.  When she finished eating, she
dove to the bottom to find some sand to wash with then swam rapidly toward the
council pool.

Tommy went straight from Ull's quarters to the medical books
brought from Earth.  Not having your wits when in the presence of a lord was
dangerous.  He found an article about several anti-convulsant drugs that could
be taken daily to prevent migraine.  They didn't work for everyone, the article
stated.  He would worry about that if he could find them in the medical
stores.  He found two:  Topiramate and Divalproex.  The second had been
approved, according to the article, while the first the article listed as still
experimental.  The possible side effects frightened him some, but considering
his situation, liver failure might be a blessing.  He began taking Divalproex
that day according to the dosage recommended.  He had done what he could.  He
didn't know a way to test the drug by forcing a migraine.

#   #   #

A tap on his shoulder interrupted Tommy's work with the
translators.

"Pull your chair over to my desk," Valin said. 
"I've got the complete list of repairs, including those that Ull assigned
a priority.  Let's review them together."

Tommy counted the pages.  "This is almost as bad as the
translation problem.  I'm not sure we'll ever get done."

"I went through the list before bringing it here,"
Valin said.  "Except for the master artisans in charge of the hydroponics
farms you already repaired and me, every master artisan in the ship has at
least one computer that can't be repaired.  In addition, two Commons farm
masters reported broken irrigation control computers."

"And the checked items are...?" asked Tommy.

"Lord Ull's list." He passed a single sheet of
paper.  "These six items duplicate those checked in the order she wants
them done."

Tommy looked at the first item on the list.  "What is a
'central controller' for one hundred fifty-two 'track controllers'?"

"I know Seth, the guildmaster for that section,"
Valin responded, "but I have no idea what function his guild
performs."

Tommy compared Ull's list to the main list, "Most of
the broken computers are on the human occupied decks, but every computer on
Ull's list is above the Commons."

Valin laughed.  "You expected something different? 
When something dies on the lords' decks, it's usually repaired, even if that
means shutting down a human deck."  He indicated one of the items on the
main list.  "The parts for the computer controlling sewage disposal on
that deck were used to repair the pond computer for a lord.  No one lives on
the human deck, anymore."

Valin's face became very serious.  He leaned over the desk
and whispered next to Tommy's ear. "Before you repaired the hydroponics
computers, the guildmasters and masters decided it is only a matter of time
before we are all dead.  Lord Ull only confirmed what we already
suspected."

Tommy also whispered, "And the lords?"

"They would be dead, too, unless they could both fix
the ship and replace us at the same time.  This ship functions because of the
artisans.  The lords live in the ship; they don't repair it.  Your work has
given us hope we might survive."

"I'll do my best," Tommy whispered, "and I
live here, too, so I want what you all want, for the ship to function." 

But if I get my way
, he thought,
how it functions
will change a bit, and I won't be living here forever.

#   #   #

Before he left for his appointment with Seth, the
guildmaster for the "track controllers," he sent Vent and his crew to
investigate the waste disposal computer. 
After all
, Tommy thought,
Lord
Ull ordered me, not my helpers, to repair the computers on the list.

The elevator door on Seth's floor opened to reveal a
stooped, old artisan.  "Good,” the old man said.  “You are prompt.  Come
with me.  You can't be wandering this deck on your own,"

"You're Seth?" Tommy asked.

The man straightened his back a little, and raised a pair of
bushy, gray eyebrows.  "Who else would I be?"

Tommy couldn't help grinning behind the back of the man he
followed down the passageway.  With his stooped gait and hairy body, an
uncommon trait among the artisans, the man seemed almost monkeylike except for
his bald head.

"Does that mean you will meet me every day I'm working
here and take me to the elevator when I'm done?" Tommy asked.

"Yes.  There are important things on this deck."

They had walked only a little way from the central column
when Seth stopped at a hatch.  As Seth led him inside, Tommy saw that the hatch
and the walls surrounding it were thicker than those in other sections.  They
passed though one of the elevator-sized rooms that Tommy now recognized as an
airlock, and a short passageway led to a chamber holding an even bigger
surprise than Seth's hairy arms and neck.  Computer monitors, the first he had
seen other than those brought from Earth, covered the walls.  Each individual
monitor was small, no more than sixteen inches in diagonal, but they covered
the walls, side by side, bottom to top, in a continuous mosaic from ceiling to
floor on three sides of the room.  All were black.  A semicircular desk
attached to the floor's center, with the open side away from the monitor-covered
walls, was the only furniture, other than a single chair.

Seth paused inside the entrance, and his already stooped
shoulders seemed to slump even more.  "When I became guildmaster of
Tracks," Seth said, "the walls of this room were alive.  My principal
duty was to keep all of this working, but, with the instruments on this
desktop, I could turn and spin the
Nesu Tol
as well as direct track
operation.  Of course the lords operate the bridge, but should they be unable
to, I could perform those functions.  Now, both sets of instruments are
dead."

They were talking in English, but he recognized the words in
the lords' language.  "
Nesu Tol.
 
The People's Hand
.  Is
that the name of this ship?"

"Yes, although only the lords usually call her that. 
To most humans, she is just 'the ship.'  She is more than that to me and
deserves to be called by her name."

Seth walked to the desk.  "Below this is the device
which needs to be repaired."

Tommy chewed his lip for a second.  "If you don't mind,
I’d like to begin at the beginning, since I have no idea what you do or what
all of this is for.  What is a track?  What is it you are in charge of?"

"The failure is below this room.  I am sure of
that," Seth said.

"You're probably right.”  Tommy smiled.  “But I can't
fix what I don't understand.  I don't understand what you control here."

Seth shrugged and turned back toward the hatch.  "The
nearest track begins two decks down."  He led Tommy back out the airlock
and down two flights of stairs into a dark room.

Seth switched on a portable light, revealing a hatch in a
bulging wall.  "That may be a tight fit for you," Seth said. 

At Seth's touch on a switch, the access door spun to the
left, withdrew from the wall like a gigantic screw, and swung to the side. 
With Seth leading, Tommy crawled through a bulkhead thicker than the length of
his arm.  Inside, in one direction, Seth's light revealed a tube-shaped shaft
twice their height with four metal tracks, spaced equidistantly around the circumference
of the shaft and stretched along its length.  That end of the shaft was
invisible in the distance.  In the other direction, another hatch face covered
the entire end of the shaft.

"What is this place?  Where does this tunnel
lead?" Tommy asked.

"To and through the hull," Seth said.  "Most
of the air is pumped from the tunnel, then a hatch in the hull on the other end
is opened, releasing whatever air remains."  He indicated the large hatch
on the end of the tunnel. "That opens.  Machinery on the other side pushes
a large object, either of iron or wrapped in iron bands, into where we're
standing.  The object is held suspended in the tunnel by magnets in the walls.
Electromagnets then accelerate the object down the tunnel toward wherever it's
aimed outside the ship."

"A rail gun!" Tommy exclaimed.  "I saw a
demonstration of one of these on a PBS program about weapons!"

"PBS program?  What is a PBS program?"

"Public Broadcasting System.  Oh, never mind.  Anyway,
scientists on Earth are developing this very thing.  Not as big, though.  How
many did you say you had?"

"One hundred fifty-two.  Four rows of thirty-six per
row, with each exit port ten degrees around the hull from the last, and four
pointing forward and four pointing backward," Seth said.

Tommy had a thought.  "You use this as a weapon?"

Seth's sour smile was made grotesque by the light he held at
his waist. "This used to be a weapon.  We sometimes used it to expel other
things."

"What does the weapon projectile look like?"

"Usually a metal rod, tapered at the end for
penetration."

"Do you know what a toothpick is?"

"Yes."

"Would this projectile look like a toothpick from a
distance?"

"Yes, I suppose it would."

"That's what the other ship was shooting at us!”
Tommy’s voice echoed in the chamber.  “And this is the reason we ran!  Our guns
don't work!"

Seth grabbed Tommy's arm.  "What do you know of
that?"

"I watched it all from an observation window!  I saw
everything!  Are these the only weapons this ship has?  Don't you have energy
weapons?  Don't you have lasers?"

"I don't know what you mean by lasers, or energy
weapons.  These are our only weapons, and they have been dead for a long
time."

Something vital did fail
, Tommy thought.

This time, when Seth lifted the trapdoor in front of the desk,
Tommy didn't protest.  As he ducked his head below the control room floor, he
looked into a chamber that, at first, seemed draped with dark snakes.  The
snakes resolved into cables leading from below the desk, and from underneath
the room above to a large black cube.  Other cables led from the cube to holes
in the walls.