Tag: Spruance Del Curtin

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Narrative

A Moment of Awkwardness

All day Spruance Del Curtin kept thinking about his talk with Dr. Doorne. He’d gone to her office thoroughly expecting a bawling out, perhaps even being told that he would get a bad grade in the class. Instead, she was bringing him onboard in a major project, one that might even get him a publication credit.

Except he had to keep it an absolute secret. Not a word about it until she personally cleared him to discuss it. In some ways that restriction was almost worse than being bawled out or getting downgraded. Where was the fun in being involved in a really cool project if he couldn’t tell all the guys about it at supper? Or worse, couldn’t brag to the girls about it when he was trying to hook up with them?

It was still bothering him as he set up a set of songs so he could get out of the DJ booth and take a stretch. Especially since he couldn’t look like he was keeping a secret — it was pretty clear from what Dr. Doorne had said that arousing curiosity would get him into as much trouble as actually blabbing. Everything had to look perfectly normal, or he would be in even worse trouble than if he’d gone and announced it on the air.

So he walked down the corridor singing ZZ Top’s “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide” along with the streamed broadcast playing from the stereo in the front office. Make it look like he was enjoying himself in typical Shep fashion, all about being hot with the girls.

And there was Lou Corlin, apparently dropping off some files, given the USB sticks he was handling. He broke off his conversation with the programming director. “Hey, Sprue, do you really think it’s wise to be bragging about driving around with four kitsune?”

Trust the DJ for the Rising Sun J-pop Show to think of “fox” in terms of the Japanese yokai rather than a smokin’ hot girl. Especially considering Chaffees were notoriously straight-laced, right there with Roosas and Glenns.

Except treating it like a dumb mistake on Lou’s part would only make things worse, especially considering the afternoon receptionist was a girl he might actually try for a date with. Unlike Cindy Margrave, who lived in a fellow Shep’s household and had to be regarded as a blood relation, Lexie belonged to the Schirra lineage, which made her fair game. Gotta play the cool dude in front of the chicks.

“That just makes things more challenging, don’t it?” Show off that big Shepard grin, get just a little closer to emphasize the height advantage.

Lou mumbled something about just joking, but it was clear he didn’t have a good comeback. Not that he’d be worried about scoring points when he had a steady girl over at Grissom City. Called herself Emiko and was a bigtime weeaboo.

Still, it was good to know he’d just made Lou back off. It almost made up for not being able to tell Lou about the real prize he’d gotten today.

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Narrative

An Awkward Meeting

All the way to Miskatonic Sector and the Astronomy Department, Spruance Del Curtin wondered just what Dr. Doorne was going to say. She’d been so upset when he offered a pandemic as an example of exponential growth, yet had refused to explain it any further. Like it was such a horrible trespass that it couldn’t even be discussed, the way some of the older people around here talked about getting their mouths washed out with soap because they’d asked about a puzzling scene in a book, and only years later figured out that they’d stumbled onto a sex scene.

Except the more he thought about it, the more certain he became that it had something to do with whatever was going on down on Earth. The reports kept coming through about sudden bouts of sickness, usually gastrointestinal, but sometimes respiratory, hitting a whole group of people at once. And then, as quickly as they came up, they disappeared from the news.

Almost as if someone doesn’t want it talked about.

Had he stumbled across some kind of dangerous secret? Was that why so many people kept making these passive-aggressive remarks about the danger of excessive inquisitivity, but refusing to explain what he’d done that upset them? Part of him wanted to find some way to beg off this meeting, especially considering that his stomach was not overly settled right now. However, he knew it would only postpone the problem, not make it go away.

As Sprue arrived at the Astronomy Department, the department secretary looked up at him, nodded, and went straight back to her work. Which meant he was expected and should go straight back to Dr. Doorne’s office.

The Astronomy Department was laid out pretty much like any of the other science departments, with a front office that included a conference room, and a series of individual offices for the scientists to work and hold office hours for their classes. Some of the smaller departments shared a module, while some of the larger ones filled a module so completely that all but the most senior scientists had to double up.

Sprue kept his pace brisk as he walked past one door after another, some open, others closed. Astronomy was not as big as one might expect given the importance of the big optical and radio telescopes on Farside — most of the work up here was primary data collection, since all modern telescopes, whether optical or radio, had digital receiver technology. As a result, most of the astronomers actually up here either had additional degrees in engineering or had ties with an astronaut clone. And when they were in their offices, they were either busy analyzing data to determine what was worth sending down to universities on Earth or they were meeting with students.

Dr. Doorne was reading something on her tablet when Sprue arrived. However, she wasn’t so engrossed in it that he needed to knock on the doorframe to get her attention. Instead she just set it aside and retrieved a folded slingback chair from a cubbyhole behind her desk.

“Have a seat, Mr. Del Curtin.”

Still the title and surname address. Just how deep of trouble was he in? Sprue thanked her, putting a little more emphasis than usual on her academic title.

If she thought he was mocking her, she made no remark on it, just went straight to business. “Since you’re so interested in the statistical implications of the spread of a pandemic, I’ve requested your assistance with a special project I’m doing in partnership with Medstaff. If this ends up being something we write up for the scientific journals, you will be listed as a junior co-author.”

Co-authorship. Publishing credits were the currency of the academic world, and every youngster up here dreamed of having their contributions as research assistants translate into one.

All Sprue could manage to get out was, “Wow.”

“Good. I’m glad you’re excited about this project.” Dr. Doorne narrowed her eyes. “However, I want you to understand that this project is under a strict information embargo. That means you are not to breathe a word about it to anyone. Not at the radio station, not during your gym hours or at the dining hall, not in class or at work, not hanging out with your friends at your module lounge. Not a word to anyone Dr. Thuc or I have not personally cleared you to discuss it with. One leak, and you are off this project. Do you understand?”

Whatever this was, it was serious. “Y-yes, ma’am.”

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Narrative

Rumors

Spruance Del Curtin awoke to the horrifying realization that he’d forgotten to set his alarm. And here he was supposed to meet Dr. Doorne in her office at 8AM sharp.

Throwing off the covers, he squinted at his phone, realized that he wasn’t so late that he couldn’t at least wash up, and he wouldn’t have to miss breakfast. He wouldn’t be able to linger around the table, but he’d never been one for long breakfasts anyway.

A few minutes later he emerged from his apartment to find the module lounge abuzz with activity. A dozen or so people were sitting and standing around it, all talking at once to the point there was no way he could possibly pick out any one conversation.

Dennis Riordan came over to him. “Do you know what’s going on with Brenda Redmond?”

Of course he’d assume that I’d know, just because we’re both DJ’s at Shepardsport Pirate Radio. Sprue bit back the first response that came to his mind, and instead said. “As a matter of fact, no, I don’t.”

It came out a touch more acid than he’d intended, and Dennis flinched just a little. Sprue decided it might be wise to soften the effect a little. “In fact, it sounds like you probably know more about the situation than me.”

Dennis moistened his lips. “From what I heard, she got a call or a text from someone in another module, so she had Ron-Jon Landis keep an eye on her kids while she went to help them. She ended up being out so late that Ron-Jon started getting worried the kids were going to wake up and be scared their mom wasn’t there.”

“Interesting.” Sprue gave his phone a very deliberate look. “Right now I don’t have time to talk. If I don’t get to the dining commons now, I won’t have time for breakfast before I have a very important meeting.”

Dennis actually had the grace to look a bit taken aback. “Oh, OK. See you later then.”

Sprue strode off to the module’s airlock, already thinking about what he’d just heard. What could’ve happened, that Brenda Redmond would take off to another module and leave her kids under the supervision of someone who’d still be in high school back on Earth?

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Narrative

A Friendly Warning

Spruance Del Curtin was walking through the corridors of Dunwich Sector when someone called his name. Surprised, he turned to face the young Grissom clone standing in the doorway.

Terry Gatlin’s face remained unreadable. “I was wondering when you’d get back here.”

Why did this not sound good? He and Terry had never gotten along very well, even back in the days of the NASA clone creche. Being up here had only exacerbated things, mainly because Terry just had to take the part of certain people.

However, right now was not the time for open conflict. Best to put the best face he could manage on the situation. “I was just going to see what a colleague knew about a situation.”

Terry gave a curt nod, a quick little up and down jerk of his chin. “You are aware that certain people are concerned about your recent inquisitivity.”

Like I didn’t notice it when the commandant called me up to his office to tell me to watch my step. But admitting that, or mentioning Dr. Doorne’s displeasure in class today, would put him at a disadvantage.

No, better go on the offensive. “Who told you to tell me this?” Sprue studied Terry, judging how far to push before he risked an altercation that would attract attention he couldn’t afford.

Terry rocked back on his heels, a bouncy little motion made easier by the Moon’s lighter gravity. Was he going to answer, or would he consider that too close to ratting someone out?

“All right, you’re not going to tell me, are you?” Sprue closed the distance between them just a little, enough to let his greater height dominate the situation. He was taking a definite risk — if he was in trouble, coming across as a bully could make things even worse.

But dammit, he did not appreciate all this passive-aggressive crap. Why couldn’t they just tell him what all this was about, instead of having people dropping hints?

Terry held his ground. Grissom himself had always been a scrapper, probably to compensate for his shortness, so why should it be any surprise. “What difference does it make? Or are you determined to. make things worse for yourself? You do realize you have a reputation as a difficult individual.”

No, Terry wasn’t going to tell him who was behind this. Whoever was displeased now, they wanted to keep him wondering so he wouldn’t know who to watch out for.

Damn, but he hated this crap. Nothing to do but acknowledge and move on. He had some studying to do, especially if Dr. Doorne wanted a talk with him right after breakfast.

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Narrative

Ill Wind Rising

Someone already had the stereo on when Spruance Del Curtin arrived at the lounge of his residence module. The Tea Time crew was just signing off for the evening, setting up one last Rolling Stones song before Spencer Dawes signed on and got the Disco Ball spinning.

Wonder what he’s going to be playing tonight? Although it might not be easy to hear over the hubbub of multiple conversations going at once. Sprue looked around the room, already crowded. From the looks of it, a bunch of people had brought folding chairs out of their apartments to supplement the furniture usually in the lounge.

He could retreat to his apartment, since his roommate had mandatory exercise time in the gym, and then work responsibility down at Aquaculture. However, right now Sprue really wasn’t excited about trying to study in an apartment not much bigger than most walk-in closets back on Earth.

Over in the far corner, Brenda and her kids were all huddled around a tablet. From the sound of it, they were doing a FaceTime conversation with Drew. With the new rules going into force, it didn’t matter whether he was still back in the Roosa Barracks or had flown in, it was all the contact Brenda and the kids were going to get with him for a long time.

She glanced up at Sprue, but didn’t say anything. However, the tension at the corners of her mouth suggested she did not approve of his being here.

Maybe it would be just as well if he did find somewhere else to study tonight. Given how many people around here were not residents of this module, it might be just as well to go see if any of the neighboring modules had a sufficiently quiet lounge that he could study without disruption.

As he was approaching the module airlock, his phone dinged: incoming text. He pulled it out to see a text from Dr. Doorne on the lock screen: I need to talk to you.

Not a good sign. If she just needed to confer with him about a project for class, she’d probably have texted with you. To you suggested annoyance, even a bawling-0ut in the offing, never mind that current events had superseded any information embargo that may have been in place.

But there was no use trying to avoid the situation. He texted back how soon?

He’d halfway hoped she’d take her time answering. Instead, her reply came right back: Tomorrow, 0800 at my office.

His first thought was annoyance at just how she knew when he was available. Then he remembered that she’d had everyone give her their schedules along with their phone numbers and e-mail addresses the first day of class.

Which made it impossible to pretend that he had another obligation at that time and would need to reschedule, or beg off entirely. Nothing to do but text back that he’d be there.

And in the meantime, he’d better be prepared to the nines. Which made it essential to find someplace where he could actually go over the material. Particularly the statistical information on the station’s listenership that he’d downloaded this afternoon.

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Narrative

Ripples from a Thrown Stone

By the time Spruance Del Curtin arrived at the Shepardsport dining commons, the place was already crowded and filled with a hubbub of people all talking at once. At least it wasn’t so bad that a line had formed just to get in and find a seat, unlike the days right after the cyberattack on Slayton Field. Of course it helped that the pilots’ table was relatively empty tonight.

Hardly surprising, if pilots from other settlements were no longer permitted to come up here to eat and socialize. Having to stay in BOQ down at the port facilities and have your meal brought by delivery robot would not be fun, but at least there was a decent lounge in that module, so they could hang out. It wasn’t like having to order your lunch to your desk three days a week because it was the only time you could squeeze in your office hours, like he’d had to do with his previous teaching responsibility.

On the other hand, would the pilots’ table be reduced to make room for more regular seating? It would make sense, but he could also imagine the Shepardsport pilots perceiving it as having something taken away from them.

As Sprue worked his way between the tables, he scanned for familiar faces as well as empty seats. Although regular seating was first-come first-served, people really didn’t appreciate having a complete stranger just drop in. Not to mention that the conversation might not necessarily be the sort you could jump straight into, since a lot of people tended to sit with other people who shared a specialty. The Medlab table was almost a formal assignment, although more because medstaff tended to have rather odd ideas of what constituted appropriate mealtime conversation. But dropping in on a table full of scientists or engineers all talking shop was a good way to spend a meal in confusion.

The station crew had never really developed a table of their own, although they did often sit with one another when they could. However, both Qunn Merton and Spencer Dawes were sitting at full tables, or at least tables where Sprue could tell he would not be overly welcome.

And then Sprue heard someone calling his name. Surprised, he turned to face one of his own clone-brothers. For an awkward moment Sprue fumbled before recognizing him: Chandler Armitage, adopted son of the former governor of New Hampshire.

“How about coming over and sitting with me? A bunch of the guys really want to hear your take on things.”

Unspoken because you’re with Shepardsport Pirate Radio, so you know things. Sprue cast a glance up at the head table, at the empty seat in the middle where Captain Waite usually sat. No, Sprue had not forgotten the awkward interview in the commandant’s office — had it only been a couple of days ago?

But to turn down a chance to sit at the pilots’ table? Not just the opportunity — appearing to slight a pilot’s invitation, and especially someone like Chandler, whose mother had been disappeared by the Administration, was not exactly the way to advance yourself around here.

Better to join Commander Armitage, and just watch his step. But how to sound like he was answering their questions while giving them no real information?

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Narrative

The Moment Everything Changed

Spruance Del Curtin had just signed off, getting everything ready for the Tea Time crew to come in, when the door opened and in walked Autumn Belfontaine, a very strange look on her face. He recalled having seen her in her office earlier, hunched over her laptop with that same fixed expression.

No, better not even bother with normal polite greetings. Just hand her the headphones and get out of the way.

The “On Air” light was already illuminated by the time he got out the door. He could only hope that the mic hadn’t picked up the click of the latch.

From the front office he could already hear Autumn’s voice over the stereo behind the receptionist’s desk. Cindy had already taken off for the evening, so Sprue decided to sit down and listen. He had plenty of time to get to the dining commons for supper and still get some studying done before he needed to be to bed. Especially with Dr. Doorne annoyed with him, he’d better be able to put in a good showing next session.

But now he was listening to Autumn reading off the URLs of one after another television station’s local news website, detailing reports of illnesses and deaths that should’ve been making the national news, even world news — but weren’t. Then she told everyone how to get to the Shepardsport Pirate Radio website to post their own accounts of what was going on in their communities.

It was a risk — if someone in the Flannigan Administration was determined to silence this outbreak, they could flood their comments page with so much spam there wouldn’t be time for the whole news team to wade through it. Maybe Lou’s sister-in-law over at Grissom City who was such a hotshot programmer might be able to write an intelligent agent to sift through it, but Sprue wasn’t going to count on it.

And then Autumn was reading a set of announcements. Not just the usual things about washing hands and covering coughs that they’d been doing for the last several days. This stuff was serious, particularly the restrictions on the pilots. All deliveries to outlying settlements were to be dropped off at the pad, and the inhabitants were to retrieve everything by loaderbot. No one was to visit the shirtsleeve habitats, and no one was to stay overnight, not at the outlying habitats, and not at any of the big settlements or Luna Station.

And he knew several women around this place who were not going to be happy about the next restriction: all pilots flying in from other settlements were to remain in the port facilities, and as much as possible should avoid interacting with local staff. And here Drew Reinholt had just managed to snag assignments flying here again. Working with Brenda was not going to be fun a-tall.

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Narrative

Whispers and Rumors

Cindy Margrave knew she shouldn’t listen in on other people’s conversations. However, Sprue and Quinn weren’t exactly making it easy to avoid doing so. They might be keeping their voices low, but they had managed to be just loud enough to be right there at the threshold of her awareness, neither so soft she couldn’t hear, nor so loud that she could hear clearly enough to put their conversation in the background. No, it was right at that volume where it drew attention no matter how hard you tried to ignore it.

Something about trouble back on Earth, and not just President Flannigan beating the drum of moral panic. She was far too familiar with that, ever since she and her sister Kitty had gotten swept up in the Expulsions just because Aunt Betty took them in.

No, this sounded like some kind of slow-motion disaster. People sick and dying in widely separated places, the authorities struggling to trace the connections between them.

Had it been only a few days ago when Autumn Belfontaine had hurried into the DJ booth to announce the breaking news about a cruise ship that had been stricken with illness and rescued by the US Navy? If there was a lot more things like it happening, why wasn’t she reporting on them?

It would’ve been so much easier if Cindy could just ask someone. But that would require admitting that she’d been guilty of listening in on a conversation to which she was not a party, even if she hadn’t meant to.

What was the saying? Keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth shut.

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Narrative

Of Linear and Geometric Growth

Even after all this time up here on the Moon, Spruance Del Curtin still found it difficult to get used to the idea that most of his instructors were not teachers in the way the ones back in Houston had been. Instead, they were people who happened to have sufficient background in a subject to teach it at the relevant level, whether or not they had any formal training in teaching.

Which was how he had a radio astronomer teaching his statistics class. Not that Dr. Doorne was a bad teacher — she certainly knew her stats, and was introducing the to professional-grade stats packages and real data — but it was sure clear that astronomy was the woman’s real interest. All it took to get the class off on a tangent was to have someone bring up one of her particular interests, especially the ones that had to do with signal processing.

He’d done it himself, a couple of times when the station was having weird difficulties that neither Engineering nor IT could hash out. As soon as he’d laid out the problem, that woman just ran with it, and damn if she wasn’t cute when she had a problem that captivated her. People talked about someone’s eyes lighting up when they got an idea, but her whole face took on this glow of excitement.

Today wasn’t going to be one of those days. She’d brought in a bunch of data sets from the rodent labs, passed out the USB sticks and told everyone to copy the data onto their laptops and proceeded to talk about exponential growth curves.

Sprue knew the theory — start with a single pair of mice and watch the population explode in a a few generations. Of course in the wild you never got anything like that except on isolated islands where they had no natural predators. But in the artificial environment of a laboratory, with complete safety and effectively limitless food, they could just keep breeding, and breeding, and breeding. And the data in front of him was bearing that out.

“However, it’s also important to remember that it is very difficult to distinguish between an exponential growth curve and the early parts of an S-curve without further data. Eventually, some forms of growth will reach a limit and level off.” Dr. Doorne looked around the room. “A population of rapidly reproducing animals will eventually reach the limits of even the most generous habitat, even if it is only because the researchers operating the laboratory take measures to limit their growth. What other forms of growth will start by looking like an exponential curve, and then level off into an S-curve?”

Trust a Chaffee to always be the first one with his hand up. Sprue still remembered taking intro to geology with one. The kid was practically the teacher’s pet within the first week of class.

“How about pyramid schemes and Ponzi schemes. Eventually they run out of suckers, for the simple reason that the human population was finite.”

Sprue was a bit taken aback. Usually that geneset was such a bunch of goody-two-shoes that you’d think they didn’t even know the concept of confidence games.

However, Dr. Doorne seemed to find it utterly unremarkable. “Who else can provide an example?”

This time Sprue made sure he got her nod. “The expansion of a virgin-field epidemic.”

Dr. Doorne’s eyes went wide. “Where did you hear about that?”

Sprue held his ground in the face of the implication that he had overstepped a boundary. “I do work at the radio station. A lot of stuff goes past the news desk.”

“That’s enough.” Dr. Doorne’s voice went hard, a tone Sprue had never heard her use. “Now, let’s turn our attention to the data sets in folder two.”

Make it definite, she knew something that wasn’t for general circulation, and did not like discovering that he was aware of it. Now the big question was whether she’d go complaining to Captain Waite too. Sprue didn’t think the big boss would be so easy-going a second time.

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Narrative

An Unexpected Summons

Homework and lesson plans finished, Quinn Merton was going through his fan mail. Not that he got a great deal of it, but as DJ of the Full Moon Barn Dance every Saturday evening, he got a decent amount.

Most of it was more on the line of requests than girls going all cow-eyed over him. Which meant it was a good idea to keep up with them so he could have his playlist lined up well before the week’s show.

His phone dinged — incoming text. He looked over to see a message from Rick Sutton. “Can you come down to the spaceport? I have something I’d like to talk to you about.”

Quinn considered the implications. Whatever, it was, it had to be important — and something sensitive enough that his elder clone-brother didn’t want to discuss it over the telephone network.

Did it have to do with that cruise ship and all of Autumn Belfontaine’s mysterious phone calls and trips down to Medlab? If it did, Major Sutton would have plenty of reason to prefer discretion, especially after the way Spruance Del Curtin got called up to the commandant’s office after he’d been trying to sound out people he thought might know something.

And if it wasn’t, it was probably going to be something else that shouldn’t be noised about. Just text back a quick I’m coming and get down there.