Second Chances (66 page)

Sandra got up and Mitch followed her out. He knew it wasn't over; she was vibrating with her annoyance. She was still having some control issues. Her emotions varied wildly; the mood swings were hard to keep track of. Hormones, Mitch thought in amusement.

“Don't you dare say it,” she growled at him.

“What?” he asked, spreading his hands.

“Don't even think it,” she said, eying him. He sighed, shaking his head mournfully. She pouted a bit. “I wish he'd do more.”

“He's the leader of a community of over a hundred people honey. He has to keep a firm hand and eye on his own people's survival first and foremost. They are doing better with trade from us, but trading with the Mongols is a losing thing in his eyes. He'd use up a lot of fuel and put his people in danger crossing that river,” he warned.

She sighed. “I still want to go there. A health and welfare checkup. We can bring some of the care packages. Set up one of your radio towers.”

“It would probably take more than one. And there is no guarantee they could work it or wouldn't just strip it for parts,” Mitch said thoughtfully. He caught her expression and then shrugged. “A decision for a later time. You young lady aren't going anywhere. You are not going to go bumping along in the bush and fording a raging river. Not in your condition,” he warned.

She frowned and then sighed. “Okay, you talked me into it,” she said. He chuckled. She poked him a few times in the sides, but he just kept chuckling. “Quit it!” she growled. He took her in his arms and hugged her before he pulled her along to dinner.

Chapter 34

Jim and Piotr grinned with their class as they finished inflating the weather balloons and let them drive upward. Each was tethered to a steel stake driven into the ground. “This is so cool!” Kamerin said.

Pete came out to find out why they were still mucking about outside. He couldn't blame them; it was a nice day. A bit chilly but nice. Better than being stuck inside he thought. But they had class. “You guys are going to get an earful. Anne said you're late,” Pete hollered. Kamerin waved at him then pointed up to the balloons excitedly.

“Paul just radioed in,” Pete said, coming over to them as they discussed the balloon project. “He asked if you are having a sale or something,” he said.

Piotr looked confused but Jim snorted. He turned to his Russian counterpart. “Back in America, businesses would attract attention by stringing balloons up. Usually cars or houses,” he said.

“Ah,” Piotr said. He shrugged as he turned to the orange balloons. “Da, is visible,” he said.

“That it is,” Jim said. “Now that we can make them we've got to iron out the bugs on the electronics and the parachute,” he said.

“That will be fun,” Pete said. “Let me know how it goes,” he said, then turned and scampered off.

“You kids are getting late for your next class,” Jim said. There were some awes of disappointment, but he waved them on back to base.

“We'll see how long they last. That should give us a rough time line to use when we predict how they'll deal with the weather and sun,” Jim said, shading his eyes to look up at the balloons.

“Da.” Piotr said, nodding. “Am already getting readings,” he said, showing Jim the tablet. Jim glanced at it then snorted.

“Do you know when we will move the radar?” Piotr asked.

“Shoot. No,” Jim said, frowning. “Give Mitch another e-mail. He may have forgotten,” he said. Piotr nodded.

------*------

Adrian made small progress on the map. Mitch's suggestion of comparison symbology only gave them so much to go on. “The problem is, we don't know what the heck they are talking about. Could this squiggly line with the X's mean women? Or something else entirely? People who are short? Children? Pregnant women? No idea,” he said in disgust.

“Yeah, I know,” Arby said nodding. “It pays to be cautious. We can't make too many suppositions. It'll be like building a house of cards. One wrong assumption and it all collapses, and we've wasted a lot of time.”

“But we have to start somewhere,” Mitch said, coming into the room. He knocked on the door frame as he entered. “Sorry, I heard the discussion since you left your door open,” he said as the two men looked up. “And there is one side benefit over being proven wrong; it eliminates one theory,” he said with a shrug.

“Proving a negative...”

“Or narrowing the field,” Mitch said. “Do what you can with what you have. Did you apply the information on our population to the symbols?” he asked, indicating the picture of the map they had pinned to the wall.

“No...”

“Try doing that. It might eliminate some of the competing theories or narrow them down at any rate.”

“Or create a whole lot more,” Arby sighed.

“True,” Mitch said. “No one ever said science was easy,” he teased. “I remember a quote, I'm not sure the source.” He frowned thoughtfully then nodded. “I'm probably mangling it, but here goes. ‘Science is more interesting when you are proven wrong. It's not about the answers it's about more questions,’” he said.

“That's...like the journey is more important than the destination or something like that,” Arby said slowly. He shrugged it off after a moment.

“Anyway, I'm not here to go over that. I got the progress report. I figured if you had a major breakthrough you two would be climbing the walls and shouting it from the rooftop. So, the vehicle coding. How goes that?”

“Coding,” Arby said, frowning. He nodded, switching mental gears. “Adrian gave us the list. We've been optimizing it, but...” He looked over to Adrian.

Adrian nodded. He hadn't gotten anywhere with the alien symbols, but he had worked out a compiler to clean up the code bloat to optimize the vehicle AI with Arby. They had also worked with the factory people and Jim on the first weather balloon packages, along with working out the first native-built, robotic factory equipment. The Lings were testing it now.

“I think we got some of the bugs out, but we should probably run a field test. I'm not sure if it's optimized the way we, you wanted it or not.”

“I don't know. You never know what is needed in code, and sometimes you can do more damage if you take something out that is needed by something you forget about,” Mitch said. “You did keep a backup copy of the original code, right?”

Adrian frowned and then nodded.

“Good.”

“Part of the code bloat was the mapping software. The computer remembered everything. But if it came across an area of terrain that didn't match its files it either went into a sulk or went back into the mapping. We're still working out a way around that.”

“See, Arby here got the idea to talk to Doc and Akira. We remember a lot, but not every little niggling detail about things. You remember the map of this place but not all its elevations down to the millimeter do you?” Adrian asked, looking at Mitch.

Mitch shook his head no.

“Right. The same with the drive to Copper Town or Iron Village. Or east. Or the mountains. You don't need that level of detail. Just the path. There is something like that in the code, but the mapper kicks in a lot. We're trying to sort that out.”

“Part of the problem is the mapping software from the other programs too. The resolution from, say the drones, doesn't match up with the shorter resolution of the vehicles,” Arby said, taking over the thread of conversation. “The dissonance causes issues and the computer tries to solve them in the background slowing the processors down.”

“Okay,” Mitch said.

“We're working something out. Something to make it easier to handle that. I'm not sure how far we'll get, it's not really my thing you know?” Adrian said. Mitch nodded. “I heard about the Darpa and Google driverless cars, I never got into it though. Mine was database management and AI coding for other applications,” he explained.

“So, you are learning as you go. Just as the computers in the vehicles sometimes have to do. And they have to be able to adapt. Got that. You are working on a better map?”

“More like compiling all the maps into one master map. Then the vehicles and aircraft can work off that.”

Mitch frowned. “Just remember what you said about the different resolutions. Don't get bit in the ass,” he warned.

“We'll try not to, sir,” Adrian said.

“Good. Field test it with a bot. In the base. See what it does.” Both men frowned thoughtfully. Mitch smiled slightly. “Think of it as a rat in a maze. Test the old software; get it to go from point A to point B and on to C. Then try it with your improvements and see if your improvements cut down on time.”

“Okay,” Arby said, finally understanding.

“If it looks good, we can try it in a vehicle,” Mitch said.

“Um, problem. All the vehicles use the cloud,” Adrian said. “So they all share the same software and map. I'm not sure if that's possible.”

Mitch smiled. “Sure it is. I did it when I came here. The KITT program can run on its own without network support. Just disable the network and monitor it with the driver. When it's done, compare it.”

Both men nodded. “Got it.”

“Let me know how it goes guys,” Mitch said, leaving with a wave.

“And now we've got our homework,” Arby sighed.

“Yeah, but we get to do a road trip,” Adrian said, holding a fist up to bump.

“Um, one thing. Dinosaurs and aliens?” Arby asked, looking at the hand.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. And first we've got to get it done before we can test it, which means a lot of code tests and creating a simulator.”

“And running a learning algorithm to tweak it all. Great,” Adrian sighed, lowering his hand in defeat. “Me and my big mouth.”

------*------

Doc teased Mitch about the gender of the baby. “That's for me to know and you to find out. A woman has to have some secrets,” she teased. He tried to tickle it out of her but she held fast. “That's for me to know and you to find out,” she said again wickedly, turning the tables on him.

“Will you at least give me a hint?” he growled, arms firmly holding her wrists to fend her off.

She gave him a saucy look. “Well, you've got a fifty-fifty chance,” she said, smiling again.

“Is it a girl?” he asked.

Her grin widened. “Maybe...maybe not,” she said evilly, waggling her eyebrows at him as he inflated and then deflated in defeat.

“No fair!” he said laughing. She nipped him. “Insatiable wench,” he mock growled. “You're trying to distract me,” he said.

She smiled ever so slightly as she kissed him. “Is it working?” she asked huskily. She felt his grip slipping on her wrists. A twist got her right hand free. Her fingers tugged on his belt.

“Maybe a little,” he admitted, sucking in a breath.

“Only a little?” she murmured, kissing him again as her hand went south to naughty territory. “How about now?” she asked wickedly in his ear. She kissed it then nibbled as her hand worked.

“Um...”

“Hmm, seems like I'm on the right track,” she murmured, continuing her relentless attack.

“Wicked...um...” he stopped complaining when she kissed him again.

------*------

Piotr's e-mail finally got Mitch's attention. Instead of responding impersonally, he called both men into his office to have a heart-to-heart talk. Mitch looked at Jim and Piotr and shook his head. Jim's face fell. “Look guys, I appreciate the offer, but there is no way you two can run a truckload of an irreplaceable radar array up a mountain side. And did either of you two think of how we would power it once you got it up there? If you got it up there?” he said.

“I did. I assumed a combination of solar and wind turbines,” Jim said.

Mitch shook his head. “Solar and wind is nice, but solar is too much of a hassle to do on a mountain. You'd have to put them on masts, which would mean a lot of metal. Which would also mean equipment to drive the metal masts into the ground, wiring, and visits by a crew to do maintenance. And solar doesn't provide much energy at night.”

“Oh.”

“Certainly not enough to power a radar array. That thing runs on what, two megawatts of power?” he asked, frowning. “Running transmission up the mountain?”

“Yeah,” Jim said, wincing. “Not fun.”

“With alien and dinosaur predators? There are some forests above us. Those lobster things. Not to mention temperature issues. We can't bury it, so...” Mitch shook his head. “And the logistics alone! Brian's already giving me three shades of a fit because Bob wants to move the chemical works again! We just split up a third of it. He wants to move the nitrate and ammonia plant way out. Beyond the compost area, which means running power lines all the way out there. And roads,” he said, making a face.

“So, not going to happen.”

“No. What I can offer you is a small compromise. What you can look into,” Mitch paused to hold up a warning finger, “mind you, is a tower. A better one than what you've got now or a hill nearby or a man-made hill if we have to make one with a tower on top. We can move the array further away from the mountain or slightly up it if possible. I don't see how; the slopes on this side are steep, nearly seventy degrees,” he said, shaking his head.