Category: Narrative

Categories
Narrative

A Much-Welcome Connection

Brenda Redmond had just gotten to the dining commons and was looking for a table for herself and her children when her phone chimed a text alert. She reached for her phone, then checked herself. No, right now she needed to get the children settled in for their meal. The last thing she needed was for them to get bored while she was looking at her phone and go running all over the place.

Tonight seemed to be unusually busy. Some days she’d welcome sitting with friends, but right now she really wanted to find a table where she and the kids were by themselves. Especially if that text were important, she wanted to be able to take care of it right away.

Technically, you weren’t supposed to be texting in the dining hall unless it was an emergency. But right now there was a lot more gray area around the definition of “emergency,” and people tended to assume you were following the rules unless you were being an ass about it.

And the beginning of the text would come up on the lock screen when she woke it to scan the QR code at her seat to sign in. Which meant she was more than a little surprised to see that it had come from Drew. Wanting to know if she knew about something, from what she could see.

As soon as she had the kids settled in at their places and there was nothing to do but wait for the serverbot to deliver their meals, she pulled the text up.

Wondering if you’ve heard anything new about the situation at Schirrasburg. We’ve got rumors going around here that either the guy recovered and never had the diablovirus at all, or that he died but it’s being kept secret to prevent panic.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I haven’t heard much of anything. Command and senior staff’s really been stepping on gossip hard lately, and to be honest, I can’t blame them. Especially how young this community trends, we can’t let people’s fears run wild.

Understood. I was just hoping you might’ve come across some information at the station.

The news department’s been a lot more careful about information of late. Autumn’s told all the reporters that they are to watch their mouths, and what they read in the newsroom is suppose to stay in the newsroom unless she gives them the go-ahead.

Probably a wise idea. But it’d help if you could keep an eye out and let me know if you see anything about it.

I’ll try, but I can’t promise anything.

Brenda would’ve said more, but the serverbot had just arrived, and it was time to eat and free up the seats for someone else.

Categories
Narrative

Considerations

All through his air shift, Spruance Del Curtin’s thoughts kept going back to Autumn’s offer. Did he want to formally become a reporter? He liked being a DJ, and he doubted that they’d let him do both.

But it wasn’t really possible to have a conversation about the subject right now, since even a long set wouldn’t necessarily be enough to cover this sort of discussion. And once he handed it over to the Tea Time crew, he needed to get straight to the classroom for his teaching responsibility. It wasn’t quite as bad as when he had a basic geology class right before his air shift, but it still made things cramped and put dinner later than he would’ve liked.

As it turned out, it wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t had somewhere he needed to get to. Autumn had already left for the day and the newsroom was dark.

As he was making his way to Miskatonic Sector and the classroom where his students and senior instructor were waiting for him, his cell phone chimed incoming text.

Dang, what was it this time? Dr. Courland knew that he was coming straight off his air shift, and it took time to get between the station offices and the classrooms.

Sprue pulled out his phone to discover a message from Drew Reinholt: Have you heard anything solid about the situation down in Schirrasburg? We’re getting conflicting information. Some people say the guy’s recovered and never had the diablovirus in the first place, and other people are saying that he died and NASA’s covering it up to prevent panic.

Not something I’ve heard about right now. I’m on my way to a class I teach right now, but I could ask Autumn tomorrow. Or maybe you can ask her yourself.

As soon as he hit send, Sprue realized that might not be the best tone to take with a pilot-astronaut, especially not the husband of one of his colleagues at the station. But it was too late to recall it now, and probably Drew would understand that people get short when they’re being interrupted on the way to something they need to get to.

On the other hand, maybe it would be profitable to sound out Dr. Courland. Maybe he’d heard something through a different channel than the one the pilots used. After all, scientists had to communicate their findings to one another, and it was likely they’d talk about other stuff too.

Categories
Narrative

No News Might Be Good News

Drew Reinholt was working his way through a new set of technical documents when he heard voices just outside his office door. He couldn’t make out words, but the tone and rhythms suggested distress, albeit carefully reined in. No doubt if he had been able to actually hear the words, he’d be too focused upon them to pick up that nuance.

Strictly speaking, even paying enough attention to notice the tension in the voices was a breach of privacy. Up here on the Moon, everyone was living in such tight quarters that it was liveable only if everyone studiosly avoided overhearing conversations that were not meant for them — although nobody would ever know if you did listen in as long as you never revealed it.

On the other hand, there were lots of ways of revealing information you weren’t supposed to have. Even so much as failing to show surprise at something could reveal that you must’ve come about knowledge in an illegitimate manner.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. Back on Earth, he would’ve had to get up to open the door, but here he could just lean back and pull the door open. As long as it wasn’t a superior, his failure to rise to greet the person wasn’t a major breach of courtesy.

“Come on in.”

He was a little surprised to find Peter Caudell there. At least Captain Caudell wasn’t in his direct line of command, but the man was sufficiently senior in the list of astronaut selection groups that a certain amount of due deference was typically expected.

On the other hand, Caudell was also a clone of a Mercury astronaut, and familiar with the Shepard temperament. No, he wasn’t going to make an Issue of it.

Instead, he just leaned against the doorpost, taking an equally casual pose. “Say, Drew, have you heard any news about the situation down in Schirrasburg?”

“Not really. With their spaceport closed, I haven’t been keeping up that closely. I’ve got enough to do between studying for my latest training sequence,” he gestured to the documents on his computer, “and preparing for upcoming missions. Especially since they keep sending me down to Coopersville all the time.” Better stop there. It wouldn’t do to sound openly resentful about being unable to visit his family when Caudell’s wife and daughter lived here in the Roosa Barracks.

If Caudell picked up anything, he made no remark on it. “I’ve just heard some rumors. Some people claim the guy’s recovering and whatever he had, they’re pretty sure it wasn’t the diablovirus. Other people are saying he died but they’re covering it up to prevent panic.”

And you thought that Brenda being a DJ over at Shepardsport Pirate Radio would have her plugged into the information networks well enough that she’d know. Except there was no way to actually say that without being rude. “Unfortunately, I haven’t heard anything more authoritative, and with the current situation, I’ve been trying to keep my nose out of trouble.”

“Understood. But if you do come across something, let me know. I’m trying to reassure some people that we’re still safe, but the lack of solid information is only making them more likely to believe the worst rumors.”

“Will do.” With the conversation closed, Drew pointedly returned his attention to the material he needed to get absorbed before his next training session. After class, he’d consider whether he should contact Brenda and find out what she might know.

Or maybe he ought to contact one of his clone-brothers who happened to be one of Brenda’s colleagues at the station. That kid had a real nose for trouble, especially when he thought someone was hiding information from him.

Categories
Narrative

Shadows of the Past

Sometimes it was amazing to see what kinds of rumors cropped up on various places on the Internet. Some of them were new, but every now and then old nuggets would pop back up, including wild claims of having seen deceased individuals very much alive. Elvis of course, but also individuals of a more unsavory sort, the dark side of fame.

Autumn Belfontaine was never sure how much credence to give any of them. On one hand, a susceptible mind could spin a chance resemblance into an encounter with an incognito historical figure. On the other hand, the existence of human cloning raised the possibility that someone had in fact seen a clone who had gotten missed during the Expulsions, especially if that clone were about the age the individual in question had been during the period of their fame or notoriety.

All the same, she considered such reports useful mostly as filler, “news of the weird” items that would inject a little levity in news reports that were becoming ever more depressing. People needed something to lighten their moods, but right now the usual forms of humor felt more like mocking matters that ought to be treated with the utmost respect.

A movement at the edge of her field of vision caught her attention. She turned to see Spruance Del Curtin slouching his way down the corridor, looking as if he really wanted to avoid being seen.

What is he up to now?

She cleared her throat to catch his attention. “Aren’t you here early?”

Was that a hint of a flinch? “Just made better time getting down here than I’d expected.”

No, that did not sound the first bit believable. But if she openly called him on the lie, he’d just clam up on her.

“Sprue, if there’s something you want to talk about, we are family.”

Sprue came over to lean against the doorpost, although he didn’t actually enter the newsroom. “Just getting tired of feeling like I’m being watched all the time.”

Autumn considered how to respond to that one. “You do realize that there’s a lot going on right now, and not all of it is for public dissemination. There’s been some concern about just how much you’ve been trying to find out things, especially with you having access to broadcast media.”

Yes, that got his back to stiffen. “Hey, it’s not like I’m going to go blabbing it all over my air shift. But you’ve gotta admit that knowing that there’s information out there but I can’t get at it is something of a challenge.”

“True. Every good reporter has that newshound’s nose. But you’re not on the news team.” Should she make it into a directive to stay in his own lane, or would it be better to extend the offer to let him join? Sprue could be difficult, and she wasn’t sure how she’d handle dealing with him that closely.

It didn’t matter, because the program director picked that moment to come out and want to talk to Sprue about something. Still, Autumn continued to ponder the question as she went back to her own work.

Categories
Narrative

Watch Yourself

Ever since Lou Corlin had delivered his little warning (presumably from Ken Redmond), Spruance Del Curtin had been feeling on edge. Not just that fluttery feeling of unease before an important exam, or the uncertainty of dealing with a situation that could go either way. Instead, he was feeling very much as if he were being watched.

He’d tried to tell himself not to be paranoid. Of course there were cameras and microphones in all the public areas. That was pretty much a given in a lunar settlement, just like it was on a spacecraft or in a space station. There were procedures for accessing the recordings, which ensured that they couldn’t be used for inappropriate purposes, whether that be idle curiosity on the part of neighbors or vindictive spite on the part of authority figures.

But it wasn’t just knowing that the public areas of the settlement were monitored. No, he was struggling with a feeling that he was being watched by people, not just the ever-present machines. That someone, or more likely several someones, were monitoring his activities because someone in authority had decided that he’d crossed a line that couldn’t be ignored.

It would be so much easier if it had been just an issue of hitting on girls. Say, he’d paid a little too much attention to someone whose parents objected, whether because they thought he was too old for their daughter or because they just didn’t like Sheps in general. But he was getting a real feeling that it was a whole lot bigger than that, especially since he really had been too busy lately to spend much time on what would often be one of his favorite pastimes.

Lou’s comment might well have been oblique, but it strongly suggested that someone was not pleased about his interest in something. But what would be the subject that they were so determined to shut him out of that they’d be sending one of his colleagues from the station to warn him off in such vague ways that it verged on the passive-aggressive?

All the way to the station offices, Sprue mulled over those thoughts. Who could he even approach to try to figure out what was such a closely guarded line of inquiry that his curiosity was so unwelcome?

Categories
Narrative

Check Your Data

The last three hours had given Ursula Doorne a massive headache, and she wasn’t exactly prone to them. But this work had most definitely given her one, and she really didn’t want to have to call over to Medlab and have them send a deliverybot with painkillers to her office.

Going over the data itself wasn’t that hard — but right now she did not view it as a useful process, not until she had verified that the methods used to collect it were indeed valid. And that was what was proving the most difficult problem.

With all the various satellites and scientific probes humanity had put into space in the decades since Sputnik, one would think almost any location in the inner Solar System would be covered by at two or more sets of sensors. That it would be reasonably easy to get another set of sensors trained onto a phenomenon of interest, if nothing else, just to make sure that it wasn’t an artifact of a subtly faulty sensor. Surely no one wanted a repeat of the AXIL fiasco, which had derailed several promising careers in X-ray astronomy.

But no, there was not one probe anywhere that could be trained on that one region near the Sun’s south pole that seemed to be behaving oddly. Right now the Israeli probe at Mercury was their only source of data, and given that the solar data was incidental to its actual mission, there was a very real question that they might be looking at faulty data.

Ursula closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to ease the pounding within her head. What other resources could they bring to bear to get another source of data without waiting for the Sun’s polar regions to come around to where the vast number of systems in the Earth-Moon system could get a good look at it?

In the meantime, she’d better talk to the space weather people. At least give them the heads-up about the data she was looking at. Make sure they understood this was not in any way, shape or form a formal release of information, not even a pre-print, but she wanted them to be aware that the space weather situation could change at a moment’s notice if it represented a major gap in the astronomy upon which their work was based.

Categories
Narrative

Reasons to Worry

Autumn Belfontaine swirled the last bit of her coffee around in the bottom of the mug. When she’d first gotten into broadcast journalism, it had seemed like a straightforward occupation. Yes, there were many ways a reporter might use to ferret out information, but it all boiled down to covering the news.

She’d never imagined that being a radio station’s news director could put her in the position of having to locate technical information for old friends who were just trying to stay on the air as best they could amidst infrastructure breakdowns. She’d never imagined that it would involve trying to hold together a team who were becoming increasingly worried about the safety of friends and family at the bottom of a gravity well while sitting at its top with no way to give them material help. And she’d certainly never imagined that she could be watching a civilization-wide catastrophe unfolding 1.5 light-seconds away, hardly an eyeblink in network times, yet a well-nigh unbridgeable distance in physical terms.

But now there was nothing for her to do but deal with the situation as best she could. At least Ken Redmond’s people had managed to put together a new main board, so Shepardsport Pirate Radio once again had a clean, professional sound. Now they had to put the location rig through a full maintenance cycle to ensure it would be ready to go when they could broadcast on location once again.

However, finding good solutions for Dan’s ongoing trouble with keeping his radio station powered up had proven far more elusive. Engineering had offered her several, but every last one of them had presupposed certain elements of the lunar environment that simply wouldn’t be available on Earth.

And then there was the stuff that was just disturbing enough that she really felt that she ought to get the word out, but without independent confirmation, she was hesitant to even put together a story and run it past the appropriate people. Like the business about the eco-fanatic cult whose lair had been found in smoking ruins, who might or might not have some connection with the diablovirus — except that it had first appeared in poverty-stricken villages of Central Asia, not staid and proper Central Europe. Or the rumor Brenda had heard about a gang leader in the south side of Chicago turning warlord and stealing groceries and other vital goods to be distributed to his people.

Not to mention just what Spruance Del Curtin might be up to right now. On the surface, it seemed like he had suddenly become very good, very conscientious, very helpful. Except it really felt like he was trying to hide something.

No, she’d never imagined that a news director could end up bearing so many burdens, all at once. But these were her people, and she couldn’t help but care about them.

Categories
Narrative

Days of Future Past

As Steffi Roderick walked back to her office, she thought over her conversation with Lou. He’d been trying hard to sound like the very model of probity, but he wasn’t doing quite as well as he thought he was. If anything, his responses had sounded too casual, too matter-of-fact, as if he were trying to make her think that there was nothing going on, nothing to see.

It didn’t help that his geneset coded for a very open face. Steffi still remembered when she first encountered his ur-brother. She’d been working at JPL at the time, having just come into it from a stint with Mitsubishi’s US division, where they built Blue Gemini spacecraft on contract for NASA in the old McDonnell-Douglass building in St. Louis.

It had been a big deal to have the NASA Administrator himself visit the Lab, especially since he was a famous astronaut rather than a bureaucrat or politician like his predecessors. Everyone knew why President Dole had chosen him in the wake of the Moonbase disaster — she wanted a new broom to sweep clean, and knew she was dealing with a man who’d had his own experience with sloppy work leading to disaster.

Only later, after he’d retired and settled in Silicon Valley, had she gotten the opportunity to make a more personal acquaintance of the man, thanks to her ties with Toni Hargreaves. Although they’d never been close, it was astonishing how much of him she recognized in Lou and the other clone-brothers.

Probably because you did spend a fair amount of time with Toni and Cather, at least until you transferred to Johnson.

Steffi shrugged. At this point, most of that was past history. Still, she did wonder just what Lou didn’t want to talk about. She had a good idea that Spruance Del Curtin was still up to mischief, no matter how hard everybody tried to keep him busy. But now was not the time to confront him.

Categories
Narrative

Some Questions

It hadn’t been ten minutes after the conversation with Juss Forsythe when the boss showed up at the hardware help desk. Not the tech support supervisor, but the head of IT herself.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Corlin.” Although she was smiling, the formal address suggested trouble was in the offing. “I see you and Mr. Forsythe were having a conversation earlier.”

Although she didn’t specifically accuse him of having been caught visiting while he was supposed to be working, why else would she remark on his conversation with Juss? Which meant he would have to watch what he said, make sure he didn’t sound defensive.

Better to make it sound routine and unremarkable. “We were just discussing some problems both our departments are dealing with.” No, better not elaborate. More information might make it sound interesting enough to pursue further.

Steffi just nodded, a curt up-and-down movement. “Is there anything I need to know about these problems?”

Lou’s heart sped up, and he hoped his face hadn’t betrayed that moment of alarm. “We have things taken care of.”

No, she did not look convinced. “If it has to do with a Shep, please don’t think you can’t talk to me about it, just because I’m married into the Shepard lineage.”

Make that definite she probably suspected they were talking about Sprue. However, she was leaving him a face-saving out, rather than making an Issue about it. Which meant he’d better take that opportunity, thank her, and reassure her that he’d let her know if things reached the point she needed to be involved.

Still, once she was gone and definitely out of earshot, Lou breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief.

Categories
Narrative

Patterns

Network activity logs weren’t usually part of Steffi Roderick’s regular checks, unless there was trouble with the network. However, given the situation right now, she had been doing a little more tracking than usual, trying to see how usage patterns had changed since the beginning of the pandemic.

It was interesting to notice how certain departments, especially in the sciences, tended to have sudden spikes all at once. She could often predict when there would be a major discovery announced, simply because one science department had a whole lot of network activity, like Astronomy was having right now.

But some of the others were more puzzling, popping up and then vanishing. Occasionally one particular device would show up in several locations, which suggested someone was doing a lot of work on something while waiting for various activities to begin.

Obviously the data would need to be anonymized if it were to be given to anyone else to analyze. But right now some of it was interesting in other ways. In particular, certain people doing some unusual searches that seemed to suggest they had some awareness of matters that were currently being kept under embargo, and were trying to find out.

In fact, it made her wonder if it was time to mention Spruance Del Curtin’s activities to certain people in authority over him. On the other hand, without definite evidence that he was actually in breach of any rules, it would be tricky to get the intended corrective effect. Yanking him in for a bawling-out might just as easily breed resentment.