Tag: Spruance Del Curtin

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Reflections

All the way to Miskatonic Sector and Dr. Doorne’s office, Spruance Del Curtin kept thinking about his discussion with Cindy. He’d never really thought about societies that way. Back in Houston, they’d studied about the history of government, from the early god-kings of Egypt and Mesopotamia to Greek democracy and the Roman republic, and how both Greece and Rome had been models for the Founding Fathers. But their teachers had never really dug into the whys and wherefores of how the different forms of government related to how people within their societies related to one another.

Now a lot of stuff made sense — like why all the nation-building in certain parts of the world kept failing and countries kept descending into warlordism just as soon as the troops left. He recalled an image he’d seen recently on the newsroom TV, of Israeli soldiers trying to distribute emergency food packages to a crowd of people who were all pushing and shoving to get to the front and grab something. Even with a number of the soldiers pushing back, trying to make sure everyone had a fair crack at the food, it was clear that some people were grabbing several and others were being pushed aside, if not outright trampled underfoot.

Other than Israel, the Middle East had been a mess long before the Energy Wars. And now that mess made a lot more sense in terms of a lack of basic trust beyond the family unit, the clan, the tribe.

Which raised the next question — how did it relate to all those data sets he was doing for Dr. Doorne? Were they so different because they were data from different countries with different levels of social cohesion?

Except he couldn’t come right out and ask her, not as long as there were still data sets needing sanitized. If he knew what he was working with, it would compromise his ability to do an unbiased job.

On the other hand, there might be other ways of approaching the problem. The data had to come from somewhere, and likely he knew someone who would know.

Even as he was contemplating that problem, his phone chimed. He pulled it out to find a message from Brenda Redmond. We’ve got a problem. I’m going to need some help.

Sprue felt a rising annoyance at her assumption that he’d jump right in. Then he remembered her husband was a Shep, so she had just as much lineage-right as Autumn Belfontaine. Better deal with it, so that he didn’t have to deal with Drew’s wrath when the restrictions were lifted and pilots could visit family again.

What’s wrong?

Kitty just got a garbled message from a friend dirtside, and now she’s on the edge of panic. We need to figure out what’s going on, and right now her aunt’s dealing with some kind of mess down at the port facility.

It took a moment for Sprue to realize what she was talking about. Yes, Cindy’s little sister Kitty had been worried this morning. She kept sneaking peeks at her phone at breakfast, even though you weren’t supposed to be using your phone in the dining commons. Hadn’t Brenda gone over to their apartment last week or so, some kind of thing about a friend in Houston having an emergency and needing an adult to sort things out?

Right now I need to meet with my new boss. But as soon as we’re done talking, I’ll see what I can do to help.

OK. TTYL

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The Ill Wind

As Lou Corlin arrived at the station offices, he considered that he might have spend more time than he should’ve on the traffic analysis Steffi Roderick had given him. Sure, it was a really thorny problem, but he also knew he had responsibilities the next day, including his air shift and his training.

But the whole time he was looking over that data, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was overlooking something important. That maybe everyone was overlooking something important, because they were so certain they knew what kind of problem they were looking at.

Which is what happened when we were locked out of the Internet. The symptoms resembled prior DDOS attacks so much that nobody in IT paused to wonder why it was intermittent, or why the usual remedies didn’t work. And then Sprue asked a couple of awkward questions, Steffi insisted they needed answers, and suddenly a whole bunch of weirdness had reasons.

And speaking of Spruance Del Curtin, he was here early today, and talking with Cindy. Not that scheming sort of talk that suggested he was trying to gain points, or wheedle something out of her without looking like he was obviously trying to gain a favor. No, he seemed to be actually discussing something with her.

Lou recalled hearing that Colonel Hearne had abandoned the syllabus last night in Constitution class and got into a whole lot of heavy stuff about how societies work. Of course the standard syllabus was intended for a typical public school classroom, so it probably wouldn’t be that hard for a class up here to catch back up to where they were supposed to be in plenty of time to take the test.

Much as he’d like to hear more about just exactly what Colonel Hearne had said, Lou could tell now was not the time to butt in on Cindy and Sprue’s discussion. Not to mention that he needed to get ready to do his air shift.

That was when Autumn Belfontaine poked her head out of the newsroom. “Lou, can I talk with you for a moment?”

“Sure.” Lou joined her in the newsroom, wondering what could be going on.

“I’d like for you to verify my understanding of some news releases in Japanese.”

As Lou skimmed over them, an icy knot of dread formed in the pit of his stomach. “It looks like they’re pretty much shutting down the Earthside part of their space program. Reading between the lines, it looks like they’re focusing on protecting their installations here on the Moon and on Mars from contagion.”

“Which strongly suggests those Indian astronauts did spread the diablovirus to the Sakura, but its medstaff detected it in time, so they didn’t spread it to Luna Station or anyone on the ground.”

“But they’re never going to come out and actually say that, because that would mean losing face.” Lou paused. “Or perhaps putting their Indian partners in a face-threatening situation.”

The fall of China’s “flying junkyard” and the destruction of Phoenix was before Lou’s time, but he’d studied it in enough classes to have a pretty strong awareness of the role played by fear of losing face in the decision chains of the Chinese Communist Party in those last fateful days and weeks. Spaceflight was no longer such a touchy national prestige thing for Japan, but the issues were still there.

And there was also the implication for the American and Russian space programs. Lou had already heard there were problems with infections at several of NASA’s space centers causing staffing shortages, and he wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Imperial space program was getting hit by the problems too.

And all it would take is one careless person somewhere in the process of clearing people for spaceflight to get it up here too. We’ve been lucky so far, but how much longer will our luck hold?

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Waiting Is the Hardest Part

The next morning Cindy Margrave was still thinking about all the things that Colonel Hearne had talked about. The difference between high-trust and low-trust societies, and how that affected everything from how governments actually functioned to the availability of basic public utilities. Internal and external locus of control and how it determined how individuals and societies responded to stressors. How the lengthening of supply lines affected the interpretation of the Commerce Clause over the two and a quarter centuries since the ratification of the Constitution.

She’d intended to review her notes after she got back to the apartment, but Kitty was so visibly upset that she needed some comforting. Yes, Aunt Betty had said she’d try to find out what was happening with Amy’s family, but with no guarantees of how much information would be forthcoming or when, Kitty was struggling with a real fear that the promise might prove hollow.

It wouldn’t be so bad if certain people hadn’t used “later” as a way of saying “no” without actually saying it. Especially Mrs. Thomas in second grade, who’d say you’d be able to have something if you just waited patiently, but would always conveniently “forget” when you tried to actually get it.

Did the adults who pulled that stunt really think that children had such short memories that a promise made a month ago would’ve evaporated from their minds by the time it was to be fulfilled? At least none of the teachers up here ever tried to pull crap like that — but then, a lunar settlement pretty well proved everything Colonel Hearne was saying about high-trust societies. To survive, everyone had to trust that everyone else would do their jobs, and do them right.

Guys up here might play hard and pull outrageous pranks, hit on every pretty girl that caught their fancy, but nobody ever screwed over a buddy. Anyone who crossed the line was apt to get a dose of what Uncle Carl called “wall to wall counseling.”

Speaking of getting hit on, the Shep pack was hanging around the entrance of the dining commons this morning. With most of the senior Sheps either on missions or quarantined down at Flight Ops, there wasn’t much to put the brakes on their antics.

At least Cindy didn’t have to run that particular gauntlet, and not just because she was with Kitty, who was far too young for that. Although Uncle Carl was just their uncle because he married Aunt Betty, the fact that Cindy and Kitty lived in his household gave them the same lineage right as their cousins, which made them off-limits.

Cindy found an empty table and settled herself and Kitty in. Maybe they could get at least a little chance to talk.

And then up walked a familiar Shep. “Hi, Cindy. Do you mind if I join you?”

In another place and time, she probably would’ve said, as a matter of fact, I do mind. But Spruance Del Curtin was a colleague from the station, and snubbing him would not stand her in good stead with management. So she put the best face on the matter that she could. “Go ahead.”

At least he had the courtesy to make a little small talk before going into the real reason he wanted to sit at her table. “I hear Colonel Hearne went on a tear last night in Constitution class.”

Cindy had to restrain her urge to laugh. Tales had a tendency to grow in the telling, and it looked like this one was no exception, no matter how much senior staff reminded everyone of the dangers of spreading rumors.

“Actually he just went off the syllabus and talked about a lot of philosophical stuff about governance and society.” Cindy realized she had an opportunity here. If she could convince Sprue to help her study her rather disorganized notes, maybe she could make sense of everything the Hero of the Falcon had said.

Play on Sprue’s Shep ego, make it impossible for him to say no without sounding like he wasn’t up to the task. And she did have the advantage of knowing that nobody would give her the side-eye or act like there was something more going on than there was.

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Tomorrow Is Another Day

When you start having trouble reading the numbers, it’s time to knock off for the night. Spruance Del Curtin fought the urge to rub his eyes, which had grown gritty from spending the entire evening poring over the latest data sets from Dr. Doorne.

So what if he’d won the accolades of his peers by providing a key insight to what was wrong with Shepardsport’s Internet connection. It sure wasn’t going to get him any slack cut on this project. Every data set still had to be examined and sanitized the same way, and it seemed like there were more of them every day.

Not to mention that the ever-increasing burden was no excuse for falling behind on his other obligations. He still needed to go over tomorrow’s lesson plan for his teaching responsibility.

The sound of the module airlock cycling pulled his attention away from his laptop. Four guys walked into the module lounge, talking among themselves a little louder than normal.

Sprue looked up, noticed that they were younger guys. Back in Houston they’d probably still be in middle school, although up here kids their age were already beginning to take significant responsibility.

Just as Sprue was about to make a sharply worded remark about sounding like they were waiting for a bus, one of the guys came over to him. “I hear Colonel Hearne really went on a tear in Constitution class this evening.”

Sprue narrowed his eyes and studied the kid, trying to place the face. Do you even live in this module, or are you tagging along with your buddies. “I don’t know a thing about that. I did Constitution class last year. You must be thinking of Eli Mallory. He lives over in Module 28.”

The other guys started ribbing their buddy for making such an obvious mistake. Then they were heading back through the airlock, and the lounge was quiet again.

No, he was not going to text Eli and ask what was going on. Sprue had his status as the DJ to protect, and having to ask for information was not going to further that. On the other hand, Cindy Margrave was also in that class — she’d mentioned it more than once at the station.

But one look at the clock in the menu bar of his laptop made it plain it was way too late to be texting Cindy. There’d be plenty of time tomorrow. Even if he couldn’t catch her at breakfast, he could drop by the station offices on his way to his teaching responsibility, since it was in Engineering rather than the usual classroom areas over in Miskatonic Sector.

Sprue closed his laptop, then headed back to his apartment, whistling “Lake Shore Drive.”

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Malware Solutions

When Spruance Del Curtin got Steffi Roderick’s voicemail, he’d assumed that would be the end of it. But about fifteen minutes later, he’d received a call from her: get down to the IT Department ASAP.

So here he was, doing his best to look the part of the hotshot Shep who wasn’t afraid of anything. He didn’t usually go down to IT, and when he did, it was mostly to drop off or pick up stuff related to the station for Lou Corlin.

But tonight it looked like Steffi had assembled most of her division chiefs on pretty much a moment’s notice. Not all of them — he knew from Lou’s descriptions that several of the hardware people weren’t. But the key systems analysts and network security people were all here — hardly surprising given they’d been working around the clock trying to restore Shepardsport’s network connectivity ever since this mess started.

Now he had to explain his theory to the real professionals, when he wasn’t entirely sure whether he was even using the correct terminology. He’d learned some of it in the course of his training on audio streaming technology, but he still wasn’t entirely sure of things like the precise difference between a gateway and an access point, or how a router differed from a hub. Not to mention that he might not even have the right term for the kind of malware he was envisioning.

However, all these people were listening to him with genuine attention. Not just the polite smile and nod he would’ve gotten back on Earth, but actually taking notes.

Of course it probably helped that Captain Waite himself was sitting at the side of the room, looking very much like Alan Shepard himself preparing for his moonshot. Being reminded that they were listening to one of the commandant’s clone-brothers, and that he had the favor of the boss himself, went a long way to keeping the adults from doing the old auto-brushoff.

Which is.a far cry from him calling me on the carpet — when was it? Already that awkward interview felt like another lifetime ago.

And then they were actually asking him questions, sometimes technical enough that he’d have to admit most of his background in networking came from his work with Shepardsport Pirate Radio. But they showed him no condescention for the admission, which truly astonished him.

However, it looked like they weren’t actually going to be pulling him into their team. Steffi reminded everyone that he was already committed to Dr. Doorne’s project, and needed his rest to be ready to meet with her tomorrow.

Oh well, you can’t have everything. Sprue did his best to look genuinely pleased as he thanked everybody. With luck, nobody would be sure whether any stiffness wasn’t just the Icy Commander peeking through.

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For a Bit of Quiet

Reggie Waite didn’t usually eat meals in his office. Unless he was particularly busy, or had to squeeze lunch in between back-to-back meetings, he preferred to go down to the dining commons. Especially in such troubled times, it was good for people to see their leadership sitting at the head table.

Tonight he was enjoying a quiet, private supper with his wife. He and Steffi had agreed they’d keep business out of their conversation, just pleasantries and family matters. They’d even agreed to put their phones in a hush box so they wouldn’t be interrupted by incoming calls or texts. If a real emergency were to come up, Betty Margrave knew where they were and why, and her office was just down the corridor.

Even so, all good things must necessarily end. And as they pulled their phones out of the hush box, Steffi’s came on with an alert: missed call and voicemail. “What’s Spruance Del Curtin calling me about? Maybe I’d better check.”

Had it only been a few days ago that Reggie had called Sprue on the carpet right here in this office? The last few days had been so crazy that it seemed like another lifetime ago. “Put it on speaker. I want to hear what he’s up to.”

There was a buzz of background noise that made it difficult to hear Sprue’s words. “…have an idea … not what we think … different kind…. something something malware…”

Reggie looked at his wife. “Is it just me, too many years of jet and rocket engines battering the old ears, or is he coming through really badly?”

“It may just be having it on speaker. This is an older phone. With everything so tight, making it work a little longer with a bit of judicious application of a soldering iron has been one fewer resource we have to find.” Steffi woke the screen. “Let me take it off speaker and replay it for you to listen.”

This time it was a little better, although it also made it easier to hear a couple of younger kids passing through whatever room Sprue was in. Maybe preschoolers, using the module corridors as a playground — kids up here learned to keep their voices down young.

However, it did enable Reggie to follow what Sprue was saying, enough to tell the kid seemed to think he was onto something. “Steffi, I think you’d better listen to this a couple of times. If he’s right, the whole IT department may have wasted two days on a completely wrong strategy.”

It just took her one listen to be convinced. “I think he’s onto something. We’d better have a talk with him.”

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Connections

Spruance Del Curtin was sitting in the module lounge, struggling with the latest problem for statistics class. Now that Dr. Doorne had selected him as a research assistant for her special project, he was leery of asking her for help. Not just because she might think he wasn’t up to the job, but because the rest of the class might think she was giving him special help.

He was concentrating so hard he only halfway heard someone calling his name. Just another distraction to shut out, like the daughter of one of the other Expulsees sitting on the far side of the lounge and pretending to study on her laptop while she watched a video on her phone.

And then a hand interposed itself between Sprue’s eyes and his laptop screen. Sprue looked up, straight into the bright blue eyes of Juss Forsythe. “Uh, hi.”

Juss’s lips curled upward, not the big grin of a Shep in Smilin’ Al mode, but still a real, friendly smile, not that forced thing some people used when they were putting a good face on something unpleasant. “Spence tells me I should talk to you about the network problems.”

“Yup.” Sprue’s cheeks grew warm and he hoped that his face wasn’t betraying him. “Is IT still proceeding on the assumption that we’re dealing with a DDOS attack?”

“As far as I know. I don’t work that closely with the software side of things. I’m mostly a hardware troubleshooter, but the last I heard when I was down there, that’s still their primary thrust.”

“I think they’re mistaken.” Sprue explained his theory, that there was some other kind of malware making it look as if Shepardsport were under a DDOS attack. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s right here on one of our own servers. Someone was careless about their passwords, or loaded a piece of software from a shady site, and that was all it took. As long as everyone keeps looking for an attack from without, they’ll never find it.”

Juss took a moment to process it all. “That’s pretty sneaky. But why didn’t you just go down to IT and tell them?”

“Because I don’t have any background in IT, for starters. I go down there, and they’re going to act like I’m just wasting their time.”

“Sprue, you’ve got lineage rights to go straight to the head of IT herself. I think it’s time you use them.” Juss paused to let those words sink in, then continued, “Or would you rather I tell her you’re too scared to talk to her?”

“Don’t call me chicken.” Sprue retrieved his phone and started hunting through the directory for the IT numbers. He wasn’t sure he had Steffi Roderick’s direct number, but he figured he could find it. He’d be damned if he let that goody-two-shoes clone of Ed White make him look like a coward.

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Seeking Answers

It was really too bad that Lou Corlin had to have the morning airshift. Right now Spruance Del Curtin would’ve really liked to sit him down and talk IT.

Sprue had spent most of the morning in Dr. Doorne’s office, working on yet another dataset that needed sanitizing and verifying before it was analyzed. The further he went on this project, the more patterns he noticed — and the more he wondered just how much that data had to do with current events on Earth.

Why else would she have become so upset when I mentioned the spread of a virgin-field epidemic as an S-curve that initially looks like exponential growth?

It was also making him think of the propagation of certain kinds of malware on a network that lacked adequate defenses. Eventually you simply ran out of computers to infect — but until that happened, the spread would appear explosive.

And then Sprue remembered someone else from the station who worked with computers and networks. Spencer Dawes was working at the robotics shop, and while it was in Engineering, it had its IT aspects. Robots were controlled via WiFi, which meant needing security on those connections to ensure your robots stayed under your control, and didn’t get turned against you in obvious or subtle ways.

Visiting the robotics shop had the added benefit that Harlan Lemont was pretty laid back about discipline, and tended to be just a little overawed by Sheps. As long as Ken Redmond didn’t decide to put in an appearance, Sprue wasn’t likely to get Spence in trouble for slacking.

As it turned out, Spence was doing some pretty routine maintenance, so it wasn’t that hard for Sprue to lend a hand and avoid the issue altogether. “So how familiar are you with network security and malware?”

“Some. I have done some basic setup, especially when we have to replace a bot’s hard drive.” Spence gave him an odd looking over. “What are you looking for?”

“I’ve got a theory about the weird problems we’re having communicating with the outside universe, and especially with Earth.” Sprue considered how to lay it out, given that he wasn’t an IT guy and didn’t have that strong of background in the jargon. “The weirdest thing about this whole thing is how it’s intermittent. Part of the time you can get through, sorta-kinda, especially on low-bandwidth systems like SMS or on store-and-forward systems like e-mail. Other times it locks up completely and you can’t even ping anything outside our own networks.”

“That’s a pretty good description of the situation.” Spencer Dawes retrieved a can of machine oil and applied a few drops to several points on the robot’s joints. “That’s what’s got everybody in IT so sure it’s got to be a new kind of DDOS attack. Instead of continually bombarding our servers with phantom requests, the pwned computers are sending them intermittently, with periods of letup that make it harder to identify the sources and block them.”

Sprue had overheard enough to know how well that was going. “Except everything they do to trace incoming TCP/IP traffic is showing no evidence of unusual patterns of incoming requests. Which suggests there’s something completely different going on, that just looks like a DDOS attack. Suppose someone could create a completely different piece of malware that causes problems that look like a DDOS attack, but is completely local to the affected computers?”

“In theory it might be possible, but I don’t know enough to say. Juss might know, since he’s done some troubleshooting for IT.” Spence cast a significant glance over Sprue’s shoulder, a warning.

Sprue didn’t dare turn to take a look — too obvious. But there was enough metal around here to provide reflective surfaces enough to give him a good idea that Ken Redmond had come in and was talking with Harlan about something. No, Sprue did not want to get crosswise with the big boss right now.

Better wind it up, figure out how he could connect with Juss Forsythe. Although Juss was a clone of Ed White, which meant Sprue didn’t have lineage right to call upon, unlike with Spencer Dawes, who was a clone of Al Shepard’s Lunar Module pilot.

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In the Information Void

There was one good thing of having a work shift right in the middle of a crisis — it kept you so busy you didn’t have time to brood. But now that Cindy had finished her shift as receptionist at Shepardsport Pirate Radio, she found she had altogether too much time to think about the current situation.

You now know just enough about it to worry you, but not nearly enough to help resolve it. On top of that, you don’t know what’s going on with Amy or her parents. The last thing you knew, her mom and dad were both being taken to the hospital, and both of them were in bad shape.

Even as Cindy reached for her phone, she checked herself. No, Kitty had her own responsibilities, and shouldn’t be interrupted. Right now there was nothing either of them could do about Amy’s situation, assuming they could even get through whatever was making communications with other lunar settlements difficult and communications with Earth well-nigh impossible.

As Cindy arrived at the Shepardsport dining commons, she scanned the area, but didn’t see Kitty. Nor did she see any of her cousins. Which meant she could either try to find someone to sit with, or take a seat at an empty table and have whoever chose to sit down with her.

Look on the bright side. At least you don’t have to deal with a dozen or more teenage Sheps all trying to hit on you, like the girls from other lineages have to.

As she was working her way through the maze of tables, someone called her name. She turned to see a blond-haired young man waving to her. “Over here. You can sit with me.”

“Thanks.” As she went to join him, she struggled to recognize him. Not Quinn Merton, although he was definitely an Armstrong.

He must’ve picked up on her struggle, because he introduced himself. “I’m Cory Jannifer. Justin Forsythe asked me to make sure you had someone to sit with at lunch.”

“Um, that’s nice of him.” Cindy winced at how clumsy those words sounded. She’d met Cory a couple of times — he’d been Spruance Del Curtin’s junior TA in a basic science class a couple of years ago, and had come to the station fairly regularly to drop things off. But it had been a while, and Cory was hitting that age when puberty really started transforming a person’s appearance.

“He is concerned about your situation.”

The sudden clench of the spinal muscles caught Cindy by surprise. There was no rational reason that she should be alarmed by what was obviously meant as a courtesy.

Yet there was the inescapable question: just how did he knew he should be concerned? She hadn’t said anything to him about Amy, and as far as she knew, neither had Kitty or Brenda.

She knew he’d spent some time out in California, at the retreat house of the Institute of Noetic Sciences. They were a parapsychological research community, which strongly suggested he possessed some level of telepathy.

There were rumors about experiments that had gone on during the Cold War, attempts to create clone-lines of powerful telepaths by splicing feline DNA into humans. They were common enough to have even become the basis of several manga series, although those were pretty clearly fantastic, with their cute telepathic catboys and catgirls getting into mischief as much feline as human.

Although Cindy wanted to ponder why the idea should bother her so intensely, Cory was already asking her how her classes were going. Nothing intrusive, just the usual making-conversation sort of thing, but she would be remiss if she didn’t respond.

And quite possibly he was supposed to engage her in conversation specifically to take her mind off Amy’s situation.

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Of Bad Science and Solid Science

When Spruance Del Curtin had agreed to work on Dr. Doorne’s project, he’d been under the impression that he’d be getting to do something interesting and extraordinary. He’d been at it for three days now, and so far all he was doing was checking the validity of datasets. Talk about tedious.

He looked up at the ceiling and rolled his eyes, wishing he could Instagram it. But Dr. Doorne had been quite clear about the matter — one whisper about this project, and he was out. No questions asked, no excuses accepted, just a quick boot to the behind.

And speaking of Dr. Doorne, she would have to pick that moment to walk into her office. “Good morning, Mr. Del Curtin.” Although she kept her tone conversational, Sprue could tell she was not pleased.

Still, he’d best show no sign of annoyance, nothing that could appear “defensive.” A polite greeting, a pleasant question about how things were going for her.

But she was not going to be deflected by the outward gestures of politeness. “You seem rather unenthusiastic today. I had been under the impression that you were excited about this project.”

“Well, I was.” Sprue studied her, trying not to narrow his eyes too much in the process and look disreputable. “But I thought it was going to be something a lot more interesting than going through reams and reams of data. I mean, I know data sanitization is important, but does it have to be so boring?”

Dr. Doorne pulled out the second chair and sat down. “A lot of things that are worth doing are boring. For instance, Tycho Brahe spent years accumulating celestial observations that were as accurate as he could make them with the instruments available to him. I would imagine that meant a lot of boring nights in a chilly observatory. And when Johannes Kepler used Tycho’s data to work out the elliptical nature of orbits, I can assure you that meant hours upon hours of tedious hand calculations, every one of which needed to be done perfectly, which would mean doing them multiple times and making sure they matched.”

Sprue understood that concept — modern statistical packages made heavy use of such processes as regressions to minimize error when it couldn’t be eliminated. It was also why you kept backups, and worked only on copies of your data, not the original.

“OK, got that. But why are you having me go through all this data,” he gestured at the columns of figures on the monitor in front of him, “with no idea of what any of it is about? That’s what’s making it super-tedious.”

Was that a smile curling Dr. Doorne’s lips ever so slightly. “Remember what we talked about in our first class about bias and lying with statistics?”

Sprue had not forgotten that day. Dr. Doorne had given them what seemed like a dozen examples of statistics done badly, with dire warnings about the fate that would befall any professional scientist who committed those statistical sins.

“Then you understand why we need to be careful that we don’t end up cherry-picking what fits our hypothesis, or otherwise seeing what we expect to find.”

Sprue considered the concept. “So it’s kind of like double-blind tests in medicine?”

Yes, that was a definite smile. “Exactly. We want the data verified and sanitized by someone who understands the general principles of the process, but not enough about the purpose of this specific dataset to bias the process.”

Which meant this was something super-important. Now all he could do was get the job done as best he could and hope he’d be let in on what was going on as things progressed.