Containment (8 page)

"True, but on the other hand, the physical model has the advantage of being real, and using actual gravity. Real-life physics is difficult to argue with."

"I guess it doesn't really matter where the problem is. All that matters is that there's an inconsistency that needs to be understood."

"Now you're looking at it the right way. Assuming the error is in one place or the other is more likely to mislead you than to expedite a solution. Unfortunately, I've been looking at it for two days, and I can't figure it out."

"You want me to try?"

"Please. Not right now, of course, but whenever you have time. I'd give the software models to the Code Pod to analyze, but you know what that process is like. It would take them months to get around to it, and then fifteen minutes to decide there's nothing they can do."

"Don't bother with them," Arik said. "I'll do it for you. Just copy everything I need into my workspace."

"Thank you, Arik," Rosemary said. "I know you have to get going, but there's one more thing."

"Sure."

"I want to give you a little advice about working in the Life Pod."

"Ok."

"You're going to be asked to solve some very difficult problems — problems that nobody else has had much luck with yet."

"I hope so."

Rosemary smiled. She put down her cup and watched Arik carefully. "All I can tell you is to trust your instincts. The reason nobody has been able to solve these problems isn't because they aren't solvable. It's because nobody has figured out the right way to think about them. Do you know what Albert Einstein's definition of insanity was?"

"No."

"Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

Arik nodded. He understood what she was telling him. She was alluding to everything she had taught Arik and Gen V about how to think — connecting her unconventional method of teaching with the need for Arik to think unconventionally in the real world. It wasn't his knowledge of software or botany or chemistry that would decide how successful he would ultimately be in the Life Pod; it was more important for him to focus on the things he didn't know. Sometimes knowledge can be a trap, Rosemary once said. It can just as easily obscure the truth as illuminate it.

"I understand."

"Good. Then I'll bet you can guess what my final piece of advice is."

"I think so," Arik said. "Question Everything."

O
rientation was held four days after Arik started working in the Life Pod. The Career Committee still had two days of hearings left, but the Director of the Environment Department had met her hiring quota, and wasn't expecting any additional personnel.

Arik spent his first four days in his lab. The new employees were asked not to go into the dome until they had an official tour, so there wasn't much else to do. He spent his time learning everything he could about botany, photosynthesis, human respiration, and V1's life support systems. He moved his workspace around the walls of his lab and alternated between standing and lounging as he read, watched video feeds, studied 3D models, and solved puzzles designed to test his comprehension and reinforce concepts. On the afternoon of the fourth day, he received an incoming video message. Subhashini's face appeared in the corner of his workspace and very cheerfully told her new employees to take the rest of the day off, but to be back first thing in the morning for orientation. Play time was over. The real work was about to begin.

The next day, all eight of the new employees stood as a group outside the entrance of the Environment Department. Although all but two of them had already started working and had even been assigned offices, this was their real initiation. There was a very palpable sense of anticipation and wonder among the group — even a sense of pride. Arik realized that this was the first time any of them would be seen as peers by the Founders. From today on, they would work side-by-side, solve the same problems, complain about the same mishaps, and share the same triumphs. He knew he would need to ask a lot of questions as he got acclimated to his work, but he also knew that it wouldn't be very long before his coworkers were coming to him.

The orientation was really about being given access to the dome. Although the small airlock that made up its entrance was not secured as far as Arik knew, only Life Pod employees were permitted inside. Arik guessed that no more than 100 people had ever set foot inside the dome, and only a very small percentage of those had any kind of real understanding of what they were looking at.

The dome was the heart of V1. It was located at its very core, and its job was nothing less than to pump V1 full of life in the most efficient and intelligent manner possible.

Arik had initially resented the Career Committee's refusal to allow him to pursue the Earth elevator, but after only a few hours in his new laboratory, and only a few minutes gazing through the hazy transparent barrier between the Life Pod and the dome, he succumbed to the excitement of the novel and the unknown. He realized that it wasn't the Earth Elevator itself that appealed to him so much as it was the challenge of the project, the opportunity to think creatively, and the promise of really making a difference. If working in the Life Pod could provide him with those things instead, he was prepared to fully commit himself.

Cadie stood beside Arik as they waited for orientation to begin. Their offices inside were next to each other, and when the polymeth wall that divided them wasn't fogged, they could see into each other's laboratories. Of course, this was an intentional arrangement; they needed their own spaces so that one might mix chemicals while the other optimized an algorithm, but they also needed to be able to easily collaborate. They could step into each others offices as necessary, or they could project their workspaces on both sides of the common polymeth wall in order to share ideas. So far they hadn't spent much time together, but they knew that the professional relationship they had established while working on the ODSTAR project would soon be applied to solving the real-world problems of the Life Pod.

The tour was to be given by the director herself. Her name was Subhashini Ramasubramanain, but she liked to be called Subha. Subha was an easygoing woman with an uncommon enthusiasm for her work. She was married to Priyanka, and seemed roughly the same age, but she had a much younger disposition which she partially expressed through her wardrobe. Everyone in V1 wore practical, lightweight, uniformly colored clothing made of nanofabrics which were compatible with V1's waterless ultraviolet sanitizing machines. Everyone, that was, except Subha. She was never seen without, at the very least, a long colorful cotton skirt, if not a full-length silk sari. How she got her clothes clean, only she and Priyanka knew.

Today she was wearing a maroon floral skirt with a white synthetic top. She came out from inside the Life Pod to meet her new employees with a wide, welcoming smile, bright against her dark complexion.

"Good
mor
-ning," she sang. "Is everybody here?" She counted them off with her index finger. "Great! Let's get started!"

Everyone arranged themselves into a line, and stepped through the door into the Life Pod entrance. Subha was walking backwards so she could face the group as they progressed through the tour.

"First of all, I want to welcome all of you to the Environment Department, and congratulate you on being chosen for such prestigious positions. All jobs in V1 are created equal, but I think we all know that some are created more equal than others."

The group liked that. Arik assumed that his peers were all hearing similar prepared remarks in a dozen other departments throughout V1 this week. There was a good-natured rivalry between pods which sometimes manifested itself as cricket matches in the Play Pod when time permitted. Subha seemed to be ensuring that the tradition would be passed down.

"The Environment Department is divided into two primary sections: the labs, and the dome. All of the labs are located on either side of this hallway with two supply rooms in the middle. Because of space limitations, your labs double as your offices, and unfortunately, some of you are being asked to share labs until we finish reconfiguring the space. We were hoping to have everything ready by the time you started, but the Infrastructure Department wasn't able to get it done in time, even under threat of having their oxygen rerouted."

The group was clearly relieved to find that their boss had a sense of humor. Arik liked Subha so far, but decided that he would reserve judgment. In his experience, some of the most vindictive people he had ever known had at one time seemed like the friendliest. It was impossible to know right away whether someone was a genuinely warm person, or whether she was simply comfortable working both ends of the social spectrum.

"Once you're assigned to specific projects, you'll have a better idea of what you need to research and who you'll be working with, so let's not worry about the labs right now. I think our time is much better spent this morning in the dome, don't you?"

The group agreed. They were standing at the end of the hallway in front of the small polymeth air exchange chamber that made up the entrance to the dome.

"Excellent. The first thing you'll notice is that you have to go through an airlock in order to get into the dome. The airlock helps maintain the environment inside so that oxygen levels can be more accurately monitored and controlled. Everything is completely automatic, so you don't have to do anything but wait. We're going to go in two at a time, and when you get inside, please stand with the group and wait for everyone to come through. René, you come with me."

Subha entered the airlock first, and René followed. They stopped just inside, and the door closed behind them. Their hair moved and their clothing rippled as air was exchanged between the airlock and the dome. When the environment was stable, the door in front of them opened, and they stepped through to the other side. Arik saw René make a funny face as she looked around and sampled the air. Subha motioned for the next two to enter.

Since René had gone with Subha, there was an odd number in the group. Arik would have usually been the one to hang back and forego a partner, but it seemed fitting that he and Cadie should go through together. Arik had always wanted to take Cadie to the dome on a date, and had asked his father on a few occasions if it could be arranged, but they had never been given permission. So they did what all the other couples in Gen V did instead: immersed themselves in interactive 3D environments, played table tennis in the Play Pod, and idly rode the maglev from pod to pod, howling through the tunnels, hands laced together on the hard plastic seats.

The door closed behind them, and as soon as Arik heard the hiss of the air valves and smelled the gas that was filling the airlock, he panicked. His first thought was that something was malfunctioning and filling the chamber with some sort of exhaust. Rather than the cool pure smell he was expecting, the air was metallic and burnt. When the door in front of them opened, Arik found that the atmosphere inside the dome had the same curious tinge, and that the rest of the group was as perplexed as he was. Subha seemed to be savoring the moment. She was waiting to address it until everyone was through.

"Ok. Now, does anyone know what that smell is?"

"Fertilizer?"

"No. The nutrient spray we use is odorless. Any other guesses?"

"Carbon dioxide?"

"Carbon dioxide is also odorless."

The group was anxious to give Subha the correct answer, but there were no other ideas. Arik was forming a theory, but it was Cadie who put it together first.

"These plants aren't producing pure oxygen."

"Ah, very good, Cadie." Subha said. "What you're smelling is ozone, or O
₃
."

She continued walking backwards down the hallway toward the heart of the dome. The walls around them were tall, but they were sloped and getting shorter as they progressed, opening up more and more of the dome, exposing the group to more sunlight and an increasingly strong breeze from the air circulation system.

"The plants we grow here produce O
₃
which allows us to yield 50% more oxygen than if they produced pure O
₂
. The ozone is also a critical component in our water treatment and filtration systems. Of course, ozone also happens to be toxic in quantities much more than about one part per million, however in these conditions, it dissociates very rapidly and reforms into pure O
₂
. Although the air you're breathing isn't the least bit toxic, our noses are sensitive to quantities of ozone as little as 1 part per hundred million which is about the quantity of ozone in here that hasn't been converted into oxygen yet. Fortunately, you get used to the smell pretty quickly. Believe it or not, it even starts smelling good."

By the time the group reached the center of the dome, there were no walls around them, and they were standing in the largest open expanse any of the eight new employees had ever experienced. The greenhouse was a tremendous geodesic dome, far larger than what Arik was expecting — larger than what he would have guessed possible considering the limited machinery on Venus. The frame consisted of plastic pipes which interlocked to form thousands of equilateral triangles, each with a thick translucent plastic panel inside. In the center of the dome was a pit with stairs leading down to a large black cylindrical tank. All around them were terraces rising up to meet the edges of the dome like bleachers in a stadium, each covered with perfectly spaced, perfectly formed, beautifully verdant ferns. They were only a few Earth days into Venus's 3,024-hour solar day so there was plenty of sunlight, though it was a thick yellowish mustard color from passing through the dense Venusian atmosphere. Despite the haze, it was strong enough to cast shadows, and everyone but Subha squinted. This was the first time they had ever felt the Sun on their skin, and Arik realized that this was probably the closest feeling to being outside that any of them would ever experience.