Ad Astra (25 page)

The man glowered. "There's nothing wrong with my credit status."

"No, sir. It's just not accepting…good, there it…damn! Now it's balking at…"

He leaned over to look at her screen. "No wonder! You're using that crap the government's been pushing. Shift over to the old stuff."

"You mean the last edition of the Fed standard?" The clerk hit several buttons, waited a moment, then smiled. "It's working! Everything's fine, sir."

The customer shook his head and looked around at the others waiting in line. "That government stuff is developing more problems by the day. Didn't they bother testing it?"

Another customer nodded. "My entire office just went back to the Fed standard. It's not perfect, but at least it's not full of bugs."

A chorus of agreement sounded, but one man went against the tide. "The government's system is made in Valentia! Aren't any of you patriotic? Don't you want to support our government against the overbearing Federation?"

The woman who'd spoken earlier laughed. "The Federation isn't messing up my work. The government is, with its worthless, bug-addled, slow, and lock-up prone system. I need software that works. That's just common sense. Or do you want to stand in line forever while the government's system chokes on ringing up your charge?"

The Valentian patriot subsided with a scowl, making no protest when his charge went through on Federation standard software.

Foster watched the little drama blandly, not showing even the smallest trace of humor when the woman declared the Federation wasn't responsible for causing the system problems at her workplace. He'd seen more and more evidence that the Valentian software system was breaking down, displaying erratic and impossible to predict failures and slowdowns. As if it had never been properly tested. Or as if a Black Clown worm spread throughout everything using that software was mutating source codes in very subtle ways.

Another month passed. All of the facilities on Julio Danato's list had been inspected, and he officially returned to the Genese Islands with a brief parting thanks from supervisor Ostov. Now Juan Feres sat in his hotel room watching the local news.

A skeptical looking woman gestured toward a video window beyond her. "Reports continue to be received of problems with the new line of universal standard ammunition and the firearms produced to use it." The video window displayed a group of uniformed soldiers with angry faces, their hands slapping at their weapons. "Our sources tell us the rifles and pistols jam more often than they work. The ammunition is prone to misfires, and will sometimes jam the weapons as well. VelArms Manufacturing and Ares Ammunition, the primary suppliers of the universal standard weapons and ammunition, insist they have uncovered no problems in the factories and suggest users are failing to employ the new weapons properly."

The video window shifted, showing a figure distorted so that neither facial features nor sex could be determined. The figure's voice was also altered, hiding it as well. "We know how to use rifles! This stuff is junk. That's all there is to it. Half the time you can't even seat a magazine of ammo properly, and when you do you can't extract it. Give the stuff time, we were told. We've given it time. It's still junk. I don't want to risk my life on a weapon that don't work. What the hell was wrong with the Federation standard weapons?"

The skeptical newscaster spoke again. "Reports have also indicated that police forces in several cities which received universal standard firearms have abandoned them and gone back to Federation standard weapons. As one officer told us, 'I won't die with a jammed gun because some idiot bureaucrat decided to fix something that wasn't broken.' We will continue following this story and report on new developments."

Another two weeks passed. Foster waited with growing impatience, which was finally rewarded during a brief visit to Kila's safehouse.

Kila grinned. "Watch this."

Another newscaster, this time a smug young man, faced the screen. "The Senate today voted to convene a special investigation into the universal standard ammunition and weapons fiasco. Hours later, the government announced that what it now characterizes as the universal standards weapons 'experiment' would be discontinued due to adverse performance issues and cost overruns."

Kila shut off the screen. "Got 'em."

Foster smiled and nodded. "I believe the operating system issue has already been resolved."

Kila flopped into a chair. "That's my assessment, too. The Valentian system now has a solid reputation as a piece of junk. Even the government has shifted back to Federation standard, because the Valentian system has gotten too buggy." He eyed Foster. "That Black Clown is one mean little devil."

Foster sat as well, feeling satisfaction rise and fighting it down. He wasn't off planet yet. The mission wasn't concluded. "You have to know you have a problem, then you have to be able to identify the cause of that problem. We created problems for the Valentians, and let them reach the wrong conclusions as to the causes."

Kila's eyes narrowed as the front-door bell rang. He opened the door and leaned into the hallway to check the doorway monitor. "It's Jane."

Foster grimaced. Coincidence, but still a bit unnerving to have three of them together here. "That's all right."

Jane showed surprise at Foster's presence, then offered a bottle filled with amber liquid. "A toast to success?"

Glasses were filled and drunk. The liquor had a fiery, exotic tang that Foster enjoyed. Not all native foodstuffs were unpleasant.

Jane sank into her own chair and looked at Foster. "This is odd, isn't it? We've won, but no one'll ever know. We sabotaged an entire planet, and we, and our superiors, are the only ones who realize it."

Foster smiled. "Sabotage is a loaded term. I prefer saying we introduced inefficiencies into non-standard elements."

"And
I'm
supposed to be playing a bureaucrat! Why is this necessary? Why couldn't the Federation have just ordered Valentia to stick to Federation standard software and small arms?"

"The Federation did send demarches," Foster pointed out. "Which were ignored. Valentia realized the Federation could scarcely afford to force a member world to conform to standards. Not openly, anyway. What Valentia didn't count on was that there are other ways than brute force to increase the price and trouble of non-conformity to Federation standards."

Kila nodded. "Even I sometimes wonder why it matters so much. If the idiots want to diverge from Fed standards, let 'em. They're the ones who'll suffer."

Foster sighed. "Initially, yes. But they wouldn't be the only ones. Certainly, the initial effects of incompatible software and changes in manufacturing standards will be felt on the world which has more trouble and thus more expense in trade, as well as less market for its goods. Long-term, though, uniform standards are what hold political entities together. Humans love to innovate, to change. Once planets started diverging from uniform standards for software, manufacturing, and everything else, the process would just keep accelerating. That'd mean growing economic and social misalignment between worlds. Growing barriers to trade, exchange of ideas, travel, and so on. Eventually, that'd mean -."

"No more Federation," Jane finished. "You'd think people would know better. Just trying to introduce new standards here cost Valentia loads of money and effort, even if it had all worked."

Foster smiled again. "If people behaved rationally all the time, they wouldn't be people. And we wouldn't have the jobs we do."

"True. Never-ending jobs, from all I hear. Where are you going to next? Another assignment?"

Foster smiled with one corner of his mouth. "If it was, I couldn't tell you. But I've got some vacation time built up. I'm going home for a little while."

"Great. Where's that?"

Foster met the inquiry with another twist of his lip.

Jane looked embarrassed. "Sorry. I just meant to be polite."

"That's okay. You understand there's a lot of things we can't discuss, even among each other, just in case someone's cover gets blown."

Kila gave one of his fierce grins. "You mean things like, is Gordon Foster your real name?"

Foster smiled again. "Are you two really Jane Smith and Jason Kila?"

They all laughed, but none of them answered the question. Foster sometimes wondered if Section Seven was really the far-beyond top secret title of his organization, or if Section Seven was itself merely a code name for some more heavily classified designation kept even from him. Wheels within wheels, and it usually didn't make sense to try figuring out where if anywhere it all ended. If people knew Section Seven existed, what Section Seven did, it couldn't function anymore, and the Federation would slowly start coming apart. Foster didn't see any good reason not to accept things as they were.

Foster made his final goodbyes and left. He altered his way back to Juan Feres' latest temporary lodging, checked out, then returned as Mr. Oaks to the short-term rental apartment. He plugged in his data port, watching as it seamlessly matched the Federation standard operating system now being employed by the rental agency. Foster completed checking out Mr. Oaks, then headed back down to the street to hail a cab back to the port terminal.

On the shuttle into space, he looked back at the globe floating in space. Foster had read of an early scientist who proclaimed he could move a world with a long enough lever. Foster's secretive levers weren't long, but thanks to their invisibility they moved worlds nonetheless. As Valentia fell away beneath the shuttle, Foster finally allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction.

Author's Note on
Standards of Success

Back to the NASA space program, in particular the robotic rovers exploring Mars. Those rovers are remarkable achievements, and yet as the praise for them kept mounting I couldn’t help noting how little they could actually do. The smallest tasks took days to complete and the smallest areas took days to creep across. An astonishing feat, yet extremely limited in what it could do and very slow in doing it. Humans on Mars could accomplish a lot more…if they were allowed to. After all, the extraordinary success of the robotic rovers had taught us how to best explore Mars. Right?

Standards of Success

26 March 2014 – The world today braced for the first landing of humans on Mars as NASA representatives declared that every possible step had been taken to ensure the safety and success of the mission. “NASA has adopted as its model the spectacularly successful unmanned missions to Mars, and will use similar operational methodology to maximize the results of this historic human mission. We want to duplicate to the greatest extent possible the amazing accomplishments of robotic explorers like the Spirit and Opportunity rovers while eliminating any possibility of even minor failures as a result of uncontrolled events.”

NASA representatives repeated their previous statements that experience with unmanned missions led to the decision for scientists on Earth to control the landing on Mars, which in turn led to the extremely complex multiple-redundant landing system which neither requires nor allows any input from the astronauts actually riding in the Mars lander. “Experience with uncrewed probes dramatically highlighted the dangers to mission success of even a single input made without multiple layers of oversight to spot errors. In light of this experience, allowing a single, unsupervised astronaut to make inputs independently at critical points could put the entire mission at risk.”

The official NASA press release points out that even though the astronauts have no way of themselves controlling their landing vehicle, if the crew of the Mars mission has any concerns during the landing sequence they need only contact NASA facilities on Earth, which would then take corrective action as quickly as needed, subject only to the ten minutes required for communications to reach Earth, the time required for a meeting involving all stake-holders in the mission to consider the situation and approve a course of action, and the ten minutes needed for any action agreed upon by the conference to be communicated back to Mars.

28 March 2014 – The first human landing on Mars yesterday was hailed as an outstanding achievement despite evidence that the landing vehicle came down in the wrong area due to a navigational error programmed into the system by operators on Earth. Confidential sources claim minutes and seconds of latitude and longitude for the landing site were plugged directly into the digital navigational system without converting them from base twelve to base ten, an error which went unnoticed by every layer of management review. “The important thing is that the mission landed safely,” NASA representatives insisted, discounting concerns that the lander had missed falling into a deep canyon by only a small margin. NASA is refusing to release copies of transmissions from the lander on its final descent, which sources claim feature screams of terror from the astronauts.

12 April 2014 – NASA announced that after spending the last two weeks in preparation, the astronauts will begin standing up from their seats in the lander today as they continue to follow procedures developed during robotic missions. The standing up process, in which every movement will be monitored, is expected to take approximately one more week assuming all goes well.

18 April 2014 – Pleased NASA scientists declared that the astronauts on Mars had exceeded expectations by standing up from their seats in only six days. The next week will be spent checking the astronauts for problems before the process of moving the astronauts toward the lander hatch begins.

29 April 2014 – NASA announced that all three astronauts have been successfully lined up at the lander’s exit hatch, a process complicated by the need to coordinate each astronaut’s movements from Earth to ensure none of them bumped into each other or any equipment inside the lander.

7 May 2014 – The first human step on the surface of Mars may be only hours away. Mission Commander Gus Grandin has spent the last several days on the ladder from the lander hatch to the Martian surface as each one of his steps was carefully planned and controlled by NASA scientists. He is currently paused on one leg with his right foot ten centimeters above the surface while NASA analyzes the implications of the discovery that a sixty centimeter diameter rock lies within one meter of the end of the ladder. NASA scientists, technicians and managers are currently debating whether to instruct Gus to step over the rock, maneuver around it, or abort the ladder sequence and return to the lander.