He hiccuped, put his hands on his stomach, and lapsed back to silence.
“So we came through—just.” Danny Shaker turned again to Doctor Eileen. “But you know that we’re not really in the clear. The records show that every human on Erin, and many of our most useful plants and animals, came here from somewhere else. We’re not native to the planet. It’s not right for us. We keep struggling along, but we do it by hauling in what we need from the Forty Worlds. And we do it with a fleet of ships that can’t be replaced, and gets older and more worn every year. I know that from personal experience—every year, something else goes wrong with the Cuchulain.
“But the old records make another fact even clearer. Of all the planets settled and colonized by humans, Erin is the most like Earth, the most like the original home world. So I think—and as I said, I don’t like to think about this too much—I think that we have been very lucky. We have survived. Maybe a handful of other planets have, too.” He glanced my way, and this time there was no wink or smile. “But for most of them, and for the future generations on Erin—”
“I agree with every word you say.” Doctor Eileen cut him off before he could finish the sentence, I think because I was present. “And now I’ll tell you why I’m asking you to fly us into the middle of the Maze. I believe we will find evidence, on the body whose coordinates I gave you, of something new about the Godspeed Drive.”
“Something new?” Shaker’s face was impassive again. “What?”
“I can’t tell you—because I don’t know. It could be as little as an old base, empty and deserted. Or it could be as much as a whole ship, with a Drive intact. But as I’m sure you’ll agree, anything about the Godspeed Drive has to be investigated. Erin’s future may depend on it.”
“Indeed it may.” Danny Shaker stood up. “I appreciate your sharing this information with me.”
“You’ve earned it. And of course, you are free to pass what I have said on to your crew.”
Danny Shaker’s mouth quirked, and there was again a gleam of humor in his eyes and mouth. “I will certainly do that, Doctor. But I ought to be honest with you, and say that I do not expect them to show much interest—unless we find a ship that’s designed for in-System use, and might replace the Cuchulain with something newer. They’re a pretty practical bunch of people, my crewmen—and I’m glad of it. Give me a crew that keeps the waste disposal system working, and I’ll take them any time over a group that spends their energy on future worries.”
He was turning to go, but Duncan West, who had been sitting blank-faced through all the conversation, suddenly spoke. “I’ll bet it’s not that,” he said.
Doctor Eileen stared at him as if he were a statue that had just come to life. “Not what?”
I understood her reaction. Uncle Duncan never contributed to such general discussions of the past and future.
“Not the computer software,” he said. “I bet it’s not that that’s causing the problem with the cleaning robots. I’m no computer specialist, but I’ve never heard of a glitch that could just drop individual rooms off, here and there, and leave the rest serviced.”
“What else could it be?” Danny Shaker was staring at Duncan, too, as though he had never seen him before.
“I don’t know. But I’d be more than willing to take a look.”
“A look? No touching the computer, you realize—hardware or software.”
“Of course not. I told you, I don’t know computers. Well?”
Danny Shaker shook his head at first in refusal, but then he gave a what-do-I-have-to-lose shrug of his shoulders. He turned to Doctor Eileen. “Can you show him the place you were talking about?”
“I think so. But Jay could do it better.”
Danny Shaker raised an eyebrow at me. “Jay?”
“I’m sure I can.”
“Then let’s go.”
I led the two men away, suddenly unsure of myself. I had been there twice, but I’d seen proof that spacesickness made me forget things. There was a lot of relief in me when I opened a door, and revealed the dusty and neglected room beyond it.
Uncle Duncan went in and stared around for half a minute, a vacant look on his face. “How would they enter and leave?—I mean the cleaning robots.”
Danny Shaker did not speak. He just pointed to a little panel, low on the far wall. Uncle Duncan walked forward without another word, leaving tracks in the deep dust, and knelt in front of the panel. He slid it carefully to one side. “It doesn’t stick.”
“I’m sure we checked that. I feel sure it’s the computer, hardware or software.”
But Duncan was shaking his head, and lying flat to stick his head past the open panel. “The cleaners come right through here.” His voice was muffled. “Everything up to the back of the panel is vacuumed and polished. Which means…”
He wriggled back a foot or two, and began to feel carefully around the rear side of the panel’s perimeter. After a few moments he grunted, rolled over onto his back, and inched his way forward until his head had again vanished behind the panel. His hands went up.
“Here we are.”
“Did you find something?” I couldn’t see what he was doing in there.
“Inhibitor circuit.” He had his forearms close together, and he seemed to be pushing hard on something. “Met this sort of thing—before.” His voice was uneven, grunting with effort. “Seen it back home. Break—in strip. See, Jay,”—he finally brought his arms down, and wiggled his way back out—“you see, Jay, there’s times when people don’t want cleaning robots in a room. Maybe they’re using it themselves for something that needs privacy, or maybe they have something in there that they’re worried about because it’s super-fragile or valuable. So some rooms have an inhibitor circuit strip that you can turn on. It sits just where a cleaning robot enters the room, and it inhibits the robot, tells it not to go in. The normal condition has the inhibitor turned off, so the room gets cleaned. But if a circuit cross-connect goes bad, like it did here, then you can get the inhibitor permanently on…”
He stood up and dusted himself off. The hair on the back of his head was thick with grime. “Well, that’s it. We won’t know for sure, of course, until the cleaners come through again.”
The whole thing, from our entry into the room until I was helping Duncan to dust himself off, had taken no more than three minutes.
Danny Shaker’s face was a picture. “Do you do this sort of thing often?”
“I make my living at it—I don’t mean cleaning machines, I mean with all sorts of mechanical fixes.”
“Then would you like to earn some money while we’re on the way to the Maze? If you would, I’ll have Tom Toole add you to the ship’s pay roster. We have a hundred little things that need fixing, all over the Cuchulain.”
“Sounds good to me. No promises, though. And no computer work—I’m just a tinkerer.”
Duncan was as laid back as ever. I don’t really think he cared much about the money, but he sure did like to fiddle with things.
Anyway, from that moment on he began to work with the crew of the Cuchulain, just as though he had been one of them for years. And every day he had a meeting with Danny Shaker, to discuss problems and progress.
It was typical Uncle Duncan. No matter where he was, or what was going on, he always managed to make his easygoing way right to the center of things. I envied him, and I wondered how he did it.
Chapter 14