were processed. The problem with the critical downed memory was located and a solution devised. Memory reintegration proceeded smoothly, enabling the Molimon to bypass one of the downed molly drives.
The system component that most concerned the Molimon reported borderline functional.
It sent out the command, to no response. Clearly the trouble was more serious than anyone, including its programmers, had anticipated.
That did not mean that the problem was insoluble. It merely required a moment of careful internal debate. The Molimon’s internal voting architecture went to work. One processor opted for procedure as written, even though that had already failed. The second suggested an alternative. Noting the failure of the first, processor three sided with two. Having thus analyzed and debated, it tried anew.
This time the door responded. Like all internal airtights it contained its own backup power cell. Running the instructions exhausted the self-contained cell’s power, but the Molimon was not concerned with that. It wanted the door shut. Opening it again would be a matter for future programs.
Internal alarms began to go off. It had spent entirely too much time operating when it ought to have been shutting down. There was insufficient power to preserve programming. When it shut down now, it would do so with concurrent loss of memory, even though all critical information would be effectively preserved on the surviving mirrored molly drives. The Molimon was not bothered by this knowledge. It had fulfilled another, more important aspect of its programming.
Enough reserve strength remained for it to send a last message to a slave monitor.
Composition of the message caused the Molimon some difficulty despite the fact that it had been programmed to accept and respond to many in plain English.
Then its backup power gave out completely.
Amy was waiting patiently next to the mixing vats when they found her. The jammed lock door gave way with a reluctant groan. Shouts, then laughter, then tears filled the hitherto silent module. She looked very small and vulnerable wrapped up in the dead engineer’s jacket.
Cassie Chin watched the reunion, wiping at her eyes as she listened to the wild exclamations of delight and joy. Mike Macek was tossing his daughter so high into the air Cassie was afraid that in the limited gravity he was going to bounce her off the ceiling. Her expression turned somber as she watched others kneel beside the body of Morrie Reuschel.
Eventually her attention shifted to the rearmost of the module’s airtight doors. Somehow the Molimon had managed to get it to shut, effectively sealing off the air leak in the section beyond. That action had preserved the remaining atmosphere in the other three fourths of the module until the rescue team had succeeded in punching its way in. She regarded the lifesaving door a while longer, then turned to business.
Karl Hendrickson was waiting for her.
“Look at the damn thing. It’s half bashed in.” He pointed at the debris-laden floor.
“Looks like that big wrench hit it.”
Cassie sighed. “Let’s get the rear panel off.”
Their first view of the Molimon’s guts had Hedrickson shaking his head. “These mollys must’ve gone down first. Then I don’t know what else.”
“But after it fixed itself, it figured out how to seal off the leak and stayed on-line long enough to get the job done.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Batteries?”
Hedrickson ran a quick check, made a face. “Dead as an imploded mouse.”
Chin pursued her lips. “Then the programming’s gone. I don’t mind that except it means we’ll never learn why it didn’t follow accepted procedure and commence preservation shutoff when the primary power went down.”
Hedrickson turned to the nearest monitor, plugged in a power cell and brought the Molimon unit on-line. “Nothing here,” he told her after several minutes of inquiry. “No, wait a sec. There is a shutdown indicator. It knew it was going.” He frowned. “The message is in nonstandard format.”
Chin moved to join him. Lights were coming on all around them as repair crews began to restore station power to the hydroponics module.
“What do you mean, it’s ‘nonstandard’?”
Hedrickson ran a speculative finger along the top of the ataraxic Molimon. His voice was flat. “Read it for yourself.”
Chin looked at the softly glowing monitor he was holding. She expected to see the words “Shutdown procedure completed.”
Instead, she saw something else. Something that was, after all, only an indication of programming awareness. Nothing more. What it said was this.
“Little girls are not redundant.”
DANCERS OF THE GATE
by James Cobb
James Cobb lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he writes both the Amanda Garrett technothriller series and the Kevin Pulaski ’50s suspense mysteries, not to mention the occasional odd bit of historical and science fiction. When not so involved, he enjoys long road trips, collecting classic military firearms, and learning the legends and lore of the great American hotrod. He may also be found frequently and shamelessly pandering to the whims of “Lisette,” his classic 1960 Ford Thunderbird.
AS HAD become their habit before an evening shift package, the Voice-of-Decision for River-’Tween-Worlds and the Operations Director for Transtellar United’s Wormgate Complex dined together. The menu consumed consisted of a raw and slightly rank slab of gristly deep ranger flesh liberally dusted with Kessta pollen, iced tea, and a Cobb salad.
The fact that the two aspects of the meal were consumed two point forty-eight parsecs apart did nothing to distract from the worn-comfortable camaraderie of the meal.
“Voice-of-the-Dance Tleelot found the selections of Artist-called-Miller most impressive. Believes we can apply to varianting of Flame-River and Joyous-Bay dance cycles. We shall experiment next amusements gathering.”
The fluid chirps and purrs of Tarrischall’s actual words in the tongue of the People flowed behind the stark computer English. Marta Lane had long ago developed the knack of laying the alien’s vocal emotion tones over the bland and choppy diction of the translator block to deduce the true meaning behind her friend’s speech.
“I’ve found that Glenn Miller works better then Cab Calloway for free-fall dance,” she replied. “The flow of the Big Bands draws a more rhythmic line than Bebop. I’d love to see what you are doing with it.”
“Shall record and send, Marta-Friend. Appreciate your introduction to musics of your Pre-Space-Times. Would like more, especially Artist-Called-Miller.”
“My pleasure, Tarrischall. After shift tonight I’ll bang ‘Tuxedo Junction’ and ‘The Jumpin Jive’ across the link. We might try a little Charley Parker while we’re at it.”
Seated in her quarters aboard the Stellar Transfer Command Station, Lane took up her personal data pad, and clipped the transparent rectangle of crystal state circuitry and liquid surface display onto the forearm sleeve of her black vacuum suit liner.
The figure within the snug liner was still firm and svelte, and Lane’s angular features were still unlined for all of her fifty plus years. An athletic mother of two and grandmother of four, she well-carried the biological rewards bestowed upon a human female who had lived the majority of her life in a low-to-zero gravity environment.
A simple gene booster treatment could have erased the silver hazing her blonde spacer’s ponytail as well, but she elected to keep her hair natural. It served to remind the youngsters on her watch that the Boss had indeed been around since the legendary days when the old fire-belching shuttle rockets had been the only available stair step into space.
Lane tapped the time hack recall on the pad’s surface with a fingernail. “Speaking of banging things across, we’d better get to work if we’re going to make that transfer at twenty-two hundred, Voice-of-Decision. I make it T
