But if her programs are corrupt, it wouldn’t do any good. The glitches would still be within her.”
“We can order her to go to backups.”
“They’re copies of the master programs we received at Luna. They’d have the same glitches.”
I swore. Then, “Can we reassemble her as a limited computational device? Rewrite the end of file, block off her fuzzy logic instructions, use only her monitoring capabilities, work her strictly from the keyboard?” At least our exhausted crewmen could get some sleep.
They exchanged glances. “Possibly,” said the Pilot. “She wouldn’t be much of a puter when we were done.”
“Get started.” I stood, stretched. “Anything you’re not sure of, block out. I’ll be back by midnight watch, and we’ll activate her then.” I sealed the hatch behind me.
I went directly to my cabin, washed off the reek of fear.
As I put on a fresh shirt I shook my head, amazed at the good fortune that had alerted us. I took the printout from my pocket, slumped with it in my easy chair. So many glitches.
The base mass parameter was bad enough, the recycler rates even worse. And one of our backup astronav systems was haywire. It wouldn’t affect us this cruise, but Lord God help Hiberniaif she Defused near Vega and tried to pinpoint her location; that section of her star maps was unusable.
Other items didn’t seem to matter. If Darla miscalculated the length of the east ladder shaft, what difference did it make? And, so what if she misremembered the volume of the passenger mess, by a factor of ten? My eye skimmed the figures. Odd, that factor of ten. It applied to other skewed measurements. The mass of the ship’s launch, for example, and the volume of the passenger mess. I sat yawning. In their repairs, Pilot Haynes and the Chief would cut out most of Darla’s consciousness. As the Pilot said, Darla would be a poor excuse for a puter when we were done with her, but at least she’d be able-”Oh, Lord God!” I leapt from my chair. No time for my jacket. I slapped open the hatch, raced down the corridor.
“Pilot, Chief! Stop!” They couldn’t hear, of course. I skidded to a halt at the sealed bridge hatch, pounded on the control. “Let me in!”
The camera swiveled; in a moment the hatch slid open.
“Get away from the keyboard! Don’t touch her!”
“Aye aye, sir.” The Chief slid back his chair.
“Is she on-line?”
His tone showed his surprise at the thought he might disobey an order. “No, sir. You told us you’d activ--”
“Off the bridge, flank!” I gestured to the corridor.
Astonished, they followed me outside. I resealed the hatch, led the way to my cabin. Inside, we all took seats around the conference table.
I said, “I don’t think she has sensors here.”
They exchanged a quick glance, as if doubting my sanity.
My voice was hushed. “You see, she killed Captain Haag.
I don’t want her to find out.”
“Captain, are you sure you... we’ve been under a lot of stress lately and--”
I slapped the printout on the table. “It was in plain sight all the time. She misread the launch’s mass by a factor of ten. Who computed a course for the launch’s last run?”
The Chiefs eyes closed. For a moment he looked gray and tired. “Darla.”
The Pilot said, “But the launch puter handled its own power calls.”
“No.” Mr. McAndrews’s voice was somber. “Not for that last trip. If Darla tightbeamed her a course as Captain Haag ordered, she’d have overridden all other pertinent data as well. Gross weight with passengers and cargo. Power requirements.”
I said, “The launch puter was told it needed ten times as much thrust as it really did.” The cursed Dosmen. My lip curled. Who would visit the happy young woman in the holo, bringing news of Mr. Haag’s death? “We missed it in the official inquiry.” The Pilot was glum.
“Our focus was on the launch’s puter. We never imagined it could be Darla.”
I forced my mind back to the present. “Anyway, we can’t just restore her end of file marker. I don’t think we can use her at all.”
“I don’t under--”
“I’d shut her down completely before I’d sail with a puter who realized she killed her Captain. It would contradict her most fundamental instruction set. She’d go insane.” I didn’t know a lot about puters, but I recalled that much from puter class at Academy.
“Sir, you talk as if she’s alive. She’s just--”
“Remember Espania?’A week before they docked at Forester, her Captain had died in an airlock accident. The puter’s records showed the suit he donned had been pulled for repair; a negligent crewman had tossed it back in the rack with the others. The puter hadn’t noticed and blamed himself.
No one could dissuade him.
Two days out of Forester, under her new Captain, Espaniahad Fused.
Twelve years later, she was still missing.
We sat silent.
The Chief said, “Lord God help us if we have to sail to Hope Nation without a puter.”
“I know. We’d never make it.” I brooded. Then, “But perhaps we don’t have to.”
“Sir?”
“Thank Ms. Dagalow.” Where Lieutenant Cousins would send a wayward middy to the barrel, Lisa Dagalow settled him down with extra studies. One time or another I’d had to memorize the contents of virtually the entire hold, and I knew just where to find the stasis box. Thanks to our conversations on the bridge, I even knew what it was for.
“The stasis box.”
“The what, sir?”
“What you might call an ultimate backup. The entire contents of Darla’s registers, taken at completion of the last cruise. Darla as she used to be.”
The Pilot frowned. “Why in heaven would we carry an old version of our puter?”
“Ms. Dagalow said all ships do, since Espania.Standing orders.” I shrugged. “The important thing is, we have her.”
“But that’s--she’d have lost a year’s memories. What of everything that’s happened since?”
“We leave her databanks untouched, and let the Darla from last cruise read and assimilate what’s occurred since she went off-line.”
Silence.
“It’s worth a try.”
The Pilot shook his head. “And when she finds she killed the Captain?”
Lisa Dagalow had strong opinions on puter awareness. I said, “If Darla’s consciousness is at all like ours, a learned memory won’t be like one she experienced.” Please, Lord.
Let it be so.
“Pardon, sir, but if you’re wrong?” The Chief.
“Then we power down flank, and let her overlays assemble into a new personality on reboot.”
“Lobotomy.”
I shrugged. “If that’s what it takes.” She was only a puter, and hundreds of lives were at stake.
The chip in my safe had all the necessary codes. Sweating at the console, I alternately blessed and cursed Lieutenant Dagalow for what she’d told me, and what she’d left unsaid.
I sent Vax with two crewmen to haul the stasis box to the bridge. Opened, it held a lead case, within that, a meter-long alloy cylinder, which we gingerly placed in the receiver built into the deck. I closed the lid, made the connection to Hiber-nia’sputer.
“Pilot, put base mass back in her fixed parameters where it belongs, and insert an end of file marker.” When he’d gone through the steps to do so, we brought up Darla’s programming inputs and followed the manual’s directions to authorize a full overwrite.
When we’d rechecked all our steps with excruciating care, I entered the command.
I don’t know what I expected, but hours passed with nothing but the blink of console lights. My tension dissipated into wariness, then oozed into boredom. Like a raw cadet, I began to fidget.
A warning chime. I nearly leaped from my chair.
“ENTRY COMPLETE. ASSIMILATING AND ORGANIZING DATA.”
I sat rigid, waiting for a sign of disaster.
Nothing. Occasionally the screen flashed incomprehensible arrays of figures.
“How long will it take?” My voice cracked.