The Victor Project (14 page)

     “This is John,” he answered.

     “John this is Pam.  I’m in the trash incinerator on Q-Module and I can’t get this damn thing running.  Can you take a look at it?” she asked.

     “Who assigned that?” he asked.

     “You did.  Don’t you remember anything?” she said.

     “And to get me back you’re pretending you can’t fix it so I’ll have to endure,” he said.

     “You got it,” she said.

     “I just landed on B, I’ll be down in a second,” he said.

     It was already starting, he told himself.  Mr. Murphy’s law was invoking and everything that could go wrong over the next few weeks looked as though it was going to.  As the elevator doors closed he envisioned the whole contraption gyrating, then shooting like a bullet up through the shaft and into space.  Just as he pictured himself floating off into oblivion, it stopped on P-deck and the doors once again opened.

     “There you are.  I haven’t spoken to you in days,” said Kerns.

     “I’ve been pretty busy,” said John.

     “What did you think about that meeting this morning?  Everybody on board is doing a bang-up job I’d say.  But I guess you guys are a little under-the-gun now, eh,” he said.

     “It’s not going to be easy.  Let me ask you something.  What’s the big rush all of the sudden?” John asked.

     “I think the board was just tired of this dragging out.  I think they wanted to start seeing a little return on their investment.”  The doors opened to Q-deck and Kerns stepped out right along side of John without missing a beat. “You can understand that.  For the first year, we’ll probably just have foreign visitors and such.”

     “You can’t just send out a memo and fix every problem this gizmo is having,” said John.

     “The
y’re not asking that John.  They’re not asking for the world.  They just want this thing to be safe and able to accept visitors a little earlier than usual.  So you move up a few time-frames,” said Kerns.

     “Easy for you to say,” said John as he stopped in front of the service door to the incinerator.

     “Look John, everything will pan out and you’ll come out looking like a hero,” said Kerns.

     “I’ll settle for competent,” remarked John.

     Kerns got the hint and continued on down the corridor.  For some strange reason, John got the feeling that the committee had Kerns purposely hunt him down and give him a pep talk or simply feel him out.  He had never seed Kerns down on Q deck.  Pam was huddling over the incinerator when he stepped through the doorway.

     “All this switched off?” John asked.

     “Yes dad, the panel is right over there,” she answered.

     “I’ll double check it,” he said.

     “I knew you would,” she replied.

     “OK, tell me what the hell you’re doing,” he said.

     “You’ve never seen this thing?” asked Pam.

     “Nope,” replied John.

     “My god, there’s a first.  I thought you knew this entire ship,” she remarked.

     “Maybe I’m just testing you,” he said.

     “Maybe you know a lot less than people give you credit for,” she remarked.

     “You going to show me how this thing works or grade me?” John said.

     “That gizmo there works much like a thruster on one of the Brandons.  These two walls raise and compress all the garbage in the center here.  The ceiling moves downward and forms a tight little oven.  The burner kicks in only after the four walls hit their triggers and boom, the shit is incinerated,” she said.

     “I’m with you,” John remarked.

     “After hitting about four hundred degrees for one-hundred-twenty seconds the burner kicks out and this floor slides back, funneling the ashes into a chamber.  Down there another burner that somehow mixes with hydrogen turns the ashes into micro-dust,” she continued.

     “How hot does it get in the lower chamber?’ asked John.

     “How should I know?  That’s not what’s wrong with this contraption anyway,” she said.

     “Please get to the point,” John remarked.

     “This top burner won’t kick in.  It’s getting fuel and the ignitor-gizmo is A-one,” she said holding up a burnt glove.

     “Nice work Elmer,” John remarked.

     “Who’s Elmer,” Pam asked.

     “Never mind,” said John.

     “I didn’t bring you up here to make fun of me.  What’s next?” she asked.

     “The oxygen sensor,” he said.

     “What oxygen sensor?” she asked.

     “On the back of that burner, there’s a bubble like thing protruding from it.  Inside that is an oxygen sensor.  It shuts down the burner when it senses a level of oxygen higher than twenty-six percent.  Either the sensor is bad or the chip is bad or the processor needs to be reset,” said John.

     “So this is just some shot in the dark,” said Pam.

     “Yea, something like that.  You’ll need that green tool kit.  It’s in the O-deck tool closet.  And that igniter gizmo as you call it shouldn’t have lit.  The sensor should have shut it down also,” said John.

     “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” said Pam.

     “Oh and that lower chamber reaches eight-hundred degrees Fahrenheit,” said John.

     “Show off,” she said as she slammed the door.

     A lot of trash had accumulated in the upper chamber of the incinerator.  What he was looking at couldn’t have been just one day’s worth.  It was going to be at least ten minutes before Pam would return, especially since he wasn’t all that sure that the green tool kit was where he said.  Five or six bags of trash had been thrown just on the outside of the chamber, most likely Pam had done this while researching the problem.  He was sure it was something she would forget after fixing the incinerator. 

     John proceeded to grab the bags and fling them into the center of the incinerator.  Upon picking up the third bag, it broke apart and the garbage inside became garbage outside.  Now the only thing in his left hand was a piece of plastic that looked as though it had exploded.  Fortunately, the contents of the bag were mostly paper and almost all of that had fallen into the center chamber, which is where it was supposed to be anyway.  Of the thirty or so pieces now at his feet, one document in particular landed with the written text facing upward.  In bold letters was the title, LAUNCH AND ARRIVAL SCHEDULE VERSION 3.4.1.

     John picked up the paper and make a quick glance around the room.  The subsequent data on the document listed what appeared to be launches of Brandon Transports from earth with a destination of C-Orbit.  There were only twelve rows in the grid and the fifth column of the grid was evidently the origin of the launches.  Seven of the rows had the letters
U.S.A. listed in the column.  The other origins were FR, ON, MC, SP, and SY.  The sixth column listed the dates for the launches, the first row in that column contained the earliest date of July fifteenth.  All of the other launch dates in the column listed this date or the date of July sixteenth.  Near the bottom it listed all persons copied along with a file name of Victor Project.

     Quickly John dropped to his knees and sifted through the other papers near his feet.  From these he was able to piece together a four page document that listed scientific personnel to be evacuated to C-Orbit.  Next to each scientist was listed his expertise and specific duties, most likely their responsibilities on C-Orbit.  Other than that it revealed nothing else.  The other pages didn’t seem to be of the same origin as the other five he had found.  Glancing at the center of the incinerator there were a few other white pages, but the question was did he have time to sift through them?

     Of the origin listed, John could ascertain that ON was Ontario Zone, MC must have been Mexico City, SP was probably San Palo, JR was Jerusalem and SY, Sydney Australia.  Where was the Japan Zone, or Tokyo or the Russian Zones?  There was plenty more room on the grid for the rest of them and the origins didn’t seem to be listed in any special manner.  It wasn’t logical that there was another document listing the missing ones separately. 

     As John made his way to the strewn garbage in the center of the incinerator, he thought about the transport docking testing.  That testing scenario made more sense to him now.  But the scenario tested twenty-five transports not the twelve on the list.  Maybe at first there had been twenty-five.  Maybe if the other zones he had thought about were included on the grid it would have added up to that.  It was possible that someone had tossed this version 3.4.1 because it had been updated to 3.4.2.  The other document must have been reassignments of the duties that were now not going to be filled.  He had now become so engrossed in the search that he failed to hear Pam enter the room.

     “What the hell are you doing?” she asked startling John.

     “Oh, I broke one of the bags and I’m trying to scoop it into the chamber,” he replied.

     “For a minute there I thought you were eating from one of the bags,” she said.

     “Speaking from experience?” remarked John.

     “Hilarious, don’t quit your day job,” she remarked.

     Suddenly John remembered what Dan had said about numerous dockings taking place over the past few days.  Every docking that takes place with C-Orbit is logged at the docking station control center, which was really just a small room with a few knobs and buttons.  And it was just around the corner from where he stood.

     “John, I was just joking,” she said.

     “No it wasn’t that.  I was thinking about another problem on the station.  I gotta’ go.  Can you handle this?” he asked.

     “Now YOU better be joking,” she remarked.

     As John made his way up the small staircase, he tried to think about his approach to reviewing the docking logs.  His clearance level gave him total access to the
files.  That was no problem.  He had often referred to them when searching for equipment deliveries and such.  Why would this occasion be any different?  He would just march in, make his request and thumb through them as any normal routine.  The on-duty docking engineer was reading a book when John swung open the door.

     “What can I do for you?” asked the man as he tried to hide the book.

     “Relax, I don’t care if you play football in here.  I just need to see the docking logs for the last, let’s say thirty, no twenty days,” said John.

    “No problem,” said the man.

     The name on his badge read Tom Poke.  John guessed he had taken a lot of abuse growing up with a name like Poke.  If one of the names he had been called was SlowPoke, he was living up to that moniker at this very moment.  Even his finger movements were painfully slow.  He was the last guy John wanted to see on the other side of the docking port in an emergency.  If a transport had to disengage due to some emergency on the ship, by the time SlowPoke could flip the required levers and buttons, the transport might as well have pushed off with their feet.

     At least he was being cooperative.  Ole Poke was probably trying to make up for the fact that he had gotten caught goofing off on the job.  John was looking out the docking port window when stealthy Poke snuck up on him with a small disk in hand.

     “Here is the log sir,” he said.  “You can use that machine in the corner.”

     “Thanks Tom,” said John.

     On the front of the disk were simply the words DOCKING PORT A - LOG 2.  The Peg disk he was handed could hold close to a gig of memory, which made it hard to believe that in all this time C-Orbit was only on its second docking log.  John plugged the disk into the machine.  Poke had taken his endorsement of reading on the job to heart and had once again settled into his book.

     John didn’t have a lot of time to waste, so working from the most recent entry backward seemed like the optimal time-saving plan.  A small fear had grown inside him since reading the pieces of paper that now lay on the incinerator floor.  It was a fear that what he had stumbled upon was more than just some governmental spending gone awry and more than just a political publicity stunt.  He feared that what he was about to read would confirm something he didn’t want to think of. 

     The last entry on the disk was July sixth. The contents section listed approximately sixteen lines of items.  Thirty-two containers were listed under the heading frozen perishables, seventeen for medical supplies, and fifteen containers of educational supplies.  Among the rest of the recent logs were provisions for livestock, insects, plants, and clothing, along with cleaning and living supplies.  

       There had been enough crap loaded onto C-Orbit over the last twenty days for a large number of people to survive for some time.  As far back as a year ago, John couldn’t remember C-Orbit ever having stocked supplies equal to these.  Someone was preparing for a lot of visitors.  He knew C-Orbit could hold around one-thousand.  Given the station was stocked properly from the start, it could sustain itself almost indefinitely.  From the logs John had just read, C-Orbit was ready to go.

     The manifests in front of him were enough to confirm what he had feared.  Beyond that fact he wasn’t sure what to do.  In the back of his mind he had hoped that he would never discover what he had suspected.  He sure as hell didn’t make plans for it.  One step at a time, he told himself as he left the docking station.  At the elevator, John paused for a moment and thought back to where Pam was now working.  He hoped he had scraped all of the papers from the broken trash bag into the incinerator and out of sight.