Troy Rising 1 - Live Free or Die (24 page)

“We're not in vacuum,” Tyler said. “You'd know if we were in vacuum. I'm given to
understand it smarts.”

“I was having a hard time with scale,” Bryan said. “That's the airlock we were docked to.”

“Roger,” Tyler said. “Big, ain't she?”

“Immense,” Steve said. “Huge doesn't cover it.”

The ship stretched seemingly forever with the airlock they had used a tiny door that
became smaller and smaller as Tyler backed away from the ship.

“She's not really all
that
big,” Tyler said. “Four hundred and twenty feet long. That's about thirty nine stories.
It's easier to think in terms of skyscrapers for things like this.”

“Good point,” Steve said, nodding. “It does work.”

“Most of the aft third is engines and power plants,” Tyler said, scooting the
Paw
around so that the crew could get a look at their new home. “The forward two fifths is a
smelter and bulk storage. The middle bit is crew quarters, life-support and command
centers. So it's a big ship but with a full crew compliment it's still rather cramped. And
compared to some it's not all that big. But it's more than big enough for us. Dr. Chu?
Comments?”

“I am absorbing myself in rapturous glory,” Dr. Chu replied. “Space in all its infinite
wonder. Are there... Is there anywhere in the
ship
with a similar view?”

“Not quite,” Tyler said. “There are some ports and your bunk has a screen which you can
set to various views. But you can ride in the
Paws
from time to time if you really want. As long as I can get my
me fun
.”

“No problem,” Dr. Chu said. “I'm a master of the noodle in all its forms. They rather
remind me of space-time theory.”

***

“So, where are we going to store the mirrors?” Astro said as Tyler hovered the
Paw
over the parking lot of AMTAC.

The mirrors had been trundled out with forklifts and were now scattered around the parking
lot, looking just a bit forlorn.

“We're not,” Tyler said, looking over his shoulder. “I'm going to pick them up with a
tractor bubble. The bubble will act as a shield against any damage. I'm just having to be
sure to get the mirrors and not the ground under them. There... got it. I just needed to
find a good structural point to pick them up off the ground so I could bubble them.”

Steve watched as first one mirror then two then the whole group of twenty-three were
picked up. There were twenty VLA mirrors, simple circles of nickel with a sat-pak on the
back, and three BDA mirrors. Those were more complex and larger glass and nickel hexagons
with cooling systems. But they all were hovering, spread out in formation, in a couple of
minutes.

“This is so very cool,” Nathan said. “This would be a six month evolution with NASA.”

“Six year,” Steve said. “Working for NASA just means I know their problems better. But at
the level we're working on, just to be able to get people to space safely has huge issues.
With this system, completely different story.”

“So we're meeting specifications?” Tyler asked as they started to ascend.

“So far I've got no issues,” Astro said. “Quite the opposite. I think with the
Paws
around we should ground every rocket on earth for our own good. Rockets are very big
explosions waiting to happen. If the
Paw
just breaks, it's going to be nothing but a big chunk of metal falling. And there is a
lot of the world for it to fall on that's empty. Meteors do it all the time and there
hasn't been anyone seriously injured since Tunguska. Of course, if it breaks just a bit in
orbit and comes down at orbital speeds... Then you've got a KEW on your hands.”

“And it will take a while to come down,” Tyler said. “Even if the other
Paws
are out system, there's probably enough time for them to come in and grapple it.”

“A point which had escaped me,” Steve admitted. “I'm still trying to catch up to the
technology. But since I can't see what you're doing I need to get some more detailed
information on the control and management systems. How, exactly, are you controlling the
Paw
?”

“Heh,” Tyler said. “Some of it is intuitive but that takes a lot of explanation. First,
you need to understand the plants.”

“Okay,” Steve said. “Go.”

“The neurological implants integrate with the brain,” Tyler said. “So when you go looking
for a piece of information it searches not just for what you've explicated but also your
back-thoughts of what you really want. Sort of like a very detailed and intuitive query
system. I went looking for information on meteors when I was setting all this stuff up. I
didn't spend a lot of time on it, but I looked through all the major online databases. And
I couldn't find one damned meteor that I liked. You with me?”

“Yes,” Steve said.

“Well, when I did the same thing using the hypernet from Glalkod, which can interact with
our internet by the way, I got a hit on Connie right away.”

“Connie?” Steve asked.

“6178 1986 DA,” Nathan replied. They were at about 40,000 feet and he was reveling in the
view. “Two point one kilometer nickel iron asteroid. Apollo.” The last meaning that its
orbit was mostly outside of earth's but crossed it. They also, generally, stayed inside
the asteroid belt ranging from outside the orbit of Mars to inside the orbit of earth.
Aten asteroids were mostly inside earth's but entered earth's orbit or crossed it. Apohele
were those that stayed mostly in earth's orbit. None of the classifications were precise.
There were 'Aten' asteroids that crossed the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth
and
Mars.

“Okay,” Steve said.

“Which Dr. Bell knew off the top of his head,” Tyler said. “But with the plants I've got
pretty much everything his memory would draw upon and a pretty good sorting system. They
use their internal memory, organic memory and a combination of intuitive processing and
software to arrive at the answer you're looking for. But they aren't, per se, creative.
They just give you access to a host of information. You have to be able to use it.”

“I'm with you so far,” the astronaut said. “How does that relate to flying the
Paw
?”

“I don't really fly it,” Tyler said. “What I do is look for flight-paths. Then a
combination of my plants, and the processors on the
Monkey Business
, sort through all the possible combinations using all available data, to find a clear
spot. You
know
what the orbital belt is like. So does the
Monkey
. Then I'm given a bunch of potential flight-paths. I generally pick the one at the top.
But it's not exactly the safest or the fastest or whatever. It's an intuitive pick.”

“I'd prefer you use the safest,” Steve pointed out. “I'd really prefer you don't conflict
a billion dollar satellite.”

“I won't,” Tyler said. “I'm not a hot-rod in this thing and the
Monkey
knows it. That's part of the algorithm. But... I don't want to take all day coming down
and I really like watching North America and South America over Eurasia and Africa. Since
we're going straight up from Huntsville to a ship over Brazil, that seems like the
straight route. But it might be really crowded up there at the moment. So the ship has to
maneuver.”

“Which we've been doing while you were talking,” Nathan said. “It was making me nervous
since you didn't seem to be paying attention.”

“I'm paying more than you think,” Tyler said. “When you guys get plants you'll understand.
But mostly I'm letting the
Monkey
fly the
Paw
. Getting back to the point. The absolute safest might be a polar insertion, then down
over Russia...”

“Which would have some security issues,” Dr. Foster pointed out.

“Which it takes into account but you see my point,” Tyler said. “Maybe Antarctica then
over the south Atlantic. But that's not my favorite view and I don't want to take another
thirty minutes out of my day flying half way around the world to get more or less straight
up. So it finds the safest route within my preferences by using a very advanced and
partially intuitive query I don't even really set up. I just comm 'Following all local
directives, get me up to the ship.' It gives me a set of routes, I pick the top one and
then keep an eye out for visual aspects. Like there was a Cessna you guys probably didn't
see at about seven miles out when we took off that wasn't on the FAA screens for some
reason. The system also highlighted that and both informed me
and
took it into account. That's what the system is for.”

“You're right,” Steve said, shaking his head. “Four years of academy training... A monkey
could fly this ship.”

“A
Monkey
is flying this ship,” Tyler said with a grin. “When I figured out how easy it was, I knew
the name for the ship right away. But it can't figure everything out.”

“Example?” Steve asked.

“Picking up the mirrors,” Tyler said, gesturing 'under' the ship. The ship had rotated so
that was now a view of the star field beyond the mirrors. They were also pretty much clear
of the atmosphere. “It didn't have a programmed way to do that. I figured that we could
either adjust the width of the grav beam to prevent damage to them or find a hard-point.
We sort of did both, maximizing lift at a hard-point while adding support to the lighter
parts of the structure. Then we wrapped them in a grav bubble when we got them off the
groundÑthey've been in zero g since we took offÑand off we went. But the computer didn't
have that method programmed. Now it does and the next time it'll be easier.”

“And if a failure happens?” Steve asked.

“If the main engines give out, the mirrors or anything else we're lifting gets dropped,”
Tyler said. "Which could be potentially ouchy for somebody. There are two redundant
back-ups that can get this thing down safely in up to a three gravity environment from
within the well. Stored capacitor power and it's pretty much a
mass
of grav plates which can be used for drives in a pinch.

"If I lose contact with the
Monkey
, I'm qualified to do a personal drop. I'm not going to promise I won't conflict a
satellite on my way down. But I probably won't. The plants and the comp on the
Paw
are good enough to manage that much traffic control. And you can be sure I'll declare an
emergency. FAA can route planes around my inbound track. Which will be to the nearest flat
spot I can find. I can drop this thing, in an emergency, right into Times Square easier
than you can land a trainer. The world has a lot of flat spots if you don't need five
thousand feet of runway.

“If
everything
gives out, which is pretty damned unlikely given that this thing has been tinkered and
refined over five
hundred
years, then we're either stuck in orbit until another ship comes along and pulls us off or
we're a dropping brick. Can't help you with that one.”

“If you had some serious pilot's training, I don't think there would be a single issue,”
Steve said, shrugging. “It all sounds... almost too good to be true.”

“That's because it is
very
advanced,” Tyler said. “We won't be able to replicate this system in the next fifty years.
The programming is just too complex. But we'll be able to make something
nearly
as good in short order. And as to the pilot, you can be sure that I'll get someone more
qualified as soon as I pick a good candidate and get him or her planted. You
can
run things without plants, but it's not easy.”

“I've had about all I can take of NASA,” Steve said with a grin.

“You don't want this job,” Tyler said. “Seriously. The guys on this ship are going to be
doing grunt work. Nobody here wants
this
job. You need to be working on
our
ships. I've got a joint project going with Boeing and McDonnell Douglas to produce the
first class of ground-space shuttles. I turned over all the plans for power plants and
drive systems to them as soon as I got back along with a functioning power plant from a
scrapped freighter and a gravplate fabber. And they're scratching their heads and talking
about a hundred billion dollars and ten years development. Which I've already commed them
is just out of the question. If they can't get off the stick I'm going to form my own
company to do it. They're still talking about light-weight composites and noodle
programming. With a power plant and a grav system you can fly one of these things, made
out of raw steel, with a stick. They can't get their head around 'the better is the enemy
of the good.'”

“Serious problem with NASA as well,” Steve admitted.

“The problem being, a start up is based around new and customized systems,” Tyler said,
shrugging. “I need Boeing and McD's expertise at
mass
production! I need shuttles, a lot of shuttles, so the
Paws
aren't constantly carrying stuff into and out of orbit. I'm going to be sending back
materials but a lot of it's going to stay in space and build orbital systems. And I can do
the big stuff, hulls and such, in space. But I still need all the fiddly bits built by
ground-based companies. So I need shuttles. Several and some of them pretty damned big so
they can carry big fiddly bits up. And I don't need them in ten years. I need them
yesterday
.”

“What about the Horvath?” Nathan asked.

“I'm hoping like hell the Horvath consider this part of the human tribes they're not
allowed to touch,” Tyler admitted. “And once we leave, I'm going to be keeping the
Monkey Business
well away from Earth and the region between the gate and Earth. Last, they were another
reason to lease it. Its Galactic transponder shows it, and the
Paws
, as belonging to one of the biggest Glatun corporations there is. I'm pretty sure that
the Horvath don't want to explain to Gorku why they destroyed one of their ships. Even an
old one.”

“But human ships it's a different story,” Astro said.

“Absolutely,” Tyler replied. “Probably. Which is, again, why I'm not going to be doing a
lot of stuff around earth or the gate if I can avoid it. Just parts and food up and
materials down. If I'm far enough away, the Horvath will have to go out of their way to
destroy whatever I've got built. And they're not going to be able to easily sort out the
human stuff from Glatun. It's the best defense I can come up with so far.”