FORECAST: The failure analysis consumed twenty hours, time sufficient for six formations completing separate reviews, with six more repeating each step.
The twelve conclusions agreed on the cause of the First Light failure.
Three primary remediations, as voted by all twelve analysis formations, were (A) greater rigor in adherence to data from the Ring’s external environment (weather, especially wind and temperature), (B) repair of the damaged Ring structure, and (C) insertion of a final go/no-go decision maker in the launch commit checklist.
The system code was already being revised to accomplish step A. Revisions would be complete within nine days.
The forecast for step B, repairs, was also nine days, but flagged as unsustainable without additional resources. Carbon-143 knew that additional formations would be deployed, though materials and assembly times were the true forcing factors and would almost certainly dictate a failure to meet that deadline.
Those were mechanical remediations. Step C could be classed as managerial/political.
An entity other than an Aggregate needed to be inserted into the final decision-making process.
(There were other Aggregate modes, though smaller units, the kind that, Carbon-143 realized, she was composed of. These were operating in autonomous mode.)
Her formation was ordered to its overdue thirty-minute downtime.
Carbon-143’s eleven colleagues wheeled and departed for their normal recharge stations.
She went in search of Whit Murray.
ACTION: Even though there were 1,724 individual humans within the Ring facility’s boundaries (down four in the last two hours), locating an individual was not difficult, not for an Aggregate with access to the locator.
Whit was one of thirty-nine human operators working in Ring control who had been sequestered as part of the investigation. Because he had no operational role or access to go/no-go functions, he had been released early (though with a flag: Examination of his data indicated excessive interest in events and information beyond his assigned function).
He was in the cafeteria with a handful of other humans. Aggregate Carbon-143 did not consider herself an expert on human emotional states, but it was obvious from the shuffling walks and lack of chat that the mood was subdued.
Whit was emerging from a food line with a tray. “Hello,” he said. He waited for her to speak; Carbon-143 did not feel this was the appropriate venue for her proposed conversation.
Whit must have realized this. “Let’s go over here,” he said, leading her to an empty table in the far corner.
As they reached it and Whit set down his tray, Carbon-143 announced, “Randall Dehm is dead.”
“What are you talking about?”
She explained. As she did, she noted changes in Whit’s physical state. His eyes began to water and his lower lip trembled. He seemed to have lost functional use of his hands.
Finally he sat down. “I can’t believe they killed him.” He stared at the floor for a moment. “And he didn’t do anything wrong!”
“We don’t know that.” In fact, the failure analysis had indicated some sloppiness on the part of human operators in Dehm’s section.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Carbon-143 regretted her statement. “Please accept my apologies. This is a time of great stress.
“New humans will be inserted into the command system. One will almost certainly be given final go/no-go power for the next light.”
“Why?”
“Because Aggregate decision making is flawed.” She was stating a simple fact, the result of careful analysis as evident on all decision trees. But further consideration added weight and even horror to that statement.
Aggregate decision making is flawed! Which led to the conclusion that Aggregate actions were incorrect. The destruction of Randall Dehm was wrong.
The inevitable conclusion was that Carbon-143 was now free to make individual decisions. They couldn’t possibly be more wrong.
She uttered these words: “Would you be willing to accept this assignment?”
“There’s a risk.”
“Correct. Failure could result in termination.”
Whit smiled coldly. “From what I’ve learned, around here, success could result in termination. For humans.” He stood. “Where and when do I start?”
Day Ten
SUNDAY, APRIL 22, 2040
Fiat justitia, ruat coelum.
(“Let justice be done, though the heavens may fall!”)
LUCIUS CALPURNIUS PISO CAESONINUS
RACHEL
It was still early morning, perhaps an hour after dawn, when Rachel Stewart-Radhakrishnan emerged, blinking, from the helicopter landing on a pad atop a giant, square building—and gasped.
She had seen many amazing sights in her life, from her father’s launch on the Destiny-7 mission to the terrifying descent of the Houston Object and the looming planetscape of Keanu, but none struck her as perfectly blending impressive, frightening, and awe-inspiring as her first sight of the Ring.
Part of the awe was due to the desert itself, so stark in its early-morning beauty. Then there was her appreciation of the ingenuity required to alter that landscape, not only building a small city where none had existed, but carving out what appeared to be a particle collider more than ten kilometers in diameter.
Then to surround it all with collections of military vehicles so large they probably equaled the entire U.S. Army of Rachel’s youth.
Keanu was bigger, but more remote. The Ring was right here in front of her.
“And we thought we were going to take this out all by ourselves,” Rachel said, speaking just loudly enough for her husband to hear her. This was how you invaded another planet, not with a ragtag band of six in a used spacecraft . . . even if you had a secret backup vehicle.
“We still do, don’t we?” Pav said. “Even though they did some of the work for us.” He nodded to the north, where a cluster of orange-and-yellow vehicles suggested repairs in progress. Residual smoke or steam supported that conclusion.
Rachel favored Pav with half a smile.
Because one thing had finally gone right, after the horror of the past two days, with the shootdown, the death of Edgar Chang, and the interrogation by the Reivers at Edwards.
Yahvi had come through.
Rachel had accepted her daughter’s radical idea of giving the Aggregates what they wanted, and that was proving to be a turning point in their relationship. Sasha Blaine and others had warned her about it over the years, because she’d never experienced it herself—nor had Pav. “It’s when the child takes over,” Sasha had said. “Where the adult realizes that the kid has a better idea. It’s one of the toughest things a parent learns.”
“Why?” Rachel had said.
“Because it means you, the parent, are one step closer to obsolescence.”
Rachel still wasn’t sure she would have truly embraced Yahvi’s idea except for what happened a few moments later.
They had been collected from the relatively private lunch area by THE officers and taken to another building, where Xavier and Tea, Zeds, and Edgely were being held. Rachel desperately wanted more privacy, more ability to talk with a bit of freedom (always assuming that someone could be aiming a directional microphone at them). She and Pav and Yahvi had agreed to pitch the idea of the proteus to THE but wanted Xavier and Zeds to hear it from them first.
The building was a kind of lab, which made sense; their human captors and Aggregate allies were surely setting up Xavier’s printer and tearing through the Substance K.