The Seventh Angel

have ended there. But Ann, in a burst of desperate and bleary-eyed wisdom, had crafted a slight modification in Mouse’s program code. The patch didn’t fix the problem because Ann Roark still hadn’t found the bug that was causing the problem. This was a different type of programming. This was a workaround.

In the lingo of programmers, a workaround is a temporary and usually imperfect way of forcing a computer to operate in spite of an uncorrected malfunction. A workaround does not repair a broken piece of program code, it merely tricks the computer into pretending that the problem doesn’t exist.

The workaround Ann Roark had patched into Mouse’s program had four simple elements: one conditional statement, and three commands:

(1) <<<< IF [emergency_maintenance_routine = active]

(2) CANCEL [emergency_maintenance_routine]

(3) RESUME [normal_operation]

(4) INVERT [last_logical_conflict] >>>>

The first line of the patch triggered the workaround as soon as Mouse’s computer went into emergency maintenance mode. The second and third lines of the patch canceled the call for emergency maintenance mode, and ordered the robot to continue operating as if no error had been received. The last line of the patch did the important work; it inverted the results of the logical conflict that had caused the error in the first place.

Mouse had been stymied by the fact that the fixture it had located did not match the shape of the digital model stored in computer memory. The code patch inverted that logical state, changing “INCORRECT SHAPE” to “CORRECT SHAPE” in Mouse’s memory.

The logical conflict was resolved. Mouse’s computer determined that all conditions had now been met for this phase of the mission. The robot moved on to the next phase and began searching for the Otis Barton’s lifting cable.

* * *

USS Towers:

Fifteen minutes later, three thousand feet above Mouse’s position and two miles to the south, a small triangular green icon appeared on the screen of Ann Roark’s laptop computer. Ann yawned so hard that her ears popped, and she thumbed the trackball, scrolling the computer’s pointer over the new symbol. A tight block of letters and numbers appeared next to the icon.

It took a few seconds for her tired eyes to focus on the tiny status report. She read it, and then she read it again. And then she screamed at the top of her lungs.

She jumped out of her chair and clasped her hands over her head like a prizefighter celebrating a victory by knockout. “Yes!” she shrieked. “Yes, damn it! YES!”

She turned around and locked eyes with the first of the Navy geeks who caught her attention. “Call the Otis Barton,” she said. “Tell them to start hauling in their cable!”

The Navy guy, whatever his name was, looked stunned. “Does this mean …”

“Yes!” Ann shouted again. “It means that mama’s little mouse is bringing home the cheese!”

* * *

Otis Barton:

The Research Vessel Otis Barton rode easily on the waves, the white paint of her hull and superstructure gleaming in the midday sun. Originally constructed as a Victorious Class acoustic surveillance ship for the United States Navy, the squat little vessel had been retired from military service and reconfigured for marine research by NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

On the ship’s fantail, a large hydraulic winch turned steadily, reeling in a long cable of braided steel at the painfully slow rate of fifty feet per minute. The winch had been designed to launch and retrieve a towed acoustic sensor array known as SURTASS. But the object hanging from the end of the submerged cable was not an underwater listening device. It was the deep water submersible Nereus, and within its pressure hull were three human beings.

No one knew the nature of the accident that had trapped the submersible on the slope of the Aleutian trench, under three thousand feet of water. There had been no communication with the Nereus since the little submarine had declared a mission abort more than twenty-four hours earlier. No one knew whether the crew of the Nereus were alive, or dead. This might be a rescue operation, or it might be nothing more than the recovery of three bodies.

The retrieval crew was composed of five workers: a winch operator, two riggers to attach tag-lines to the miniature submarine and guide it onto the deck of the ship, and a pair of divers in insulated wetsuits — standing by to go into the water if anything went wrong. In warm weather, there would sometimes be a few spectators, out on deck to enjoy the sunshine and watch the mini-sub come out of the water. When the weather was cold or the seas were rough, the spectators tended to stay inside the ship, where they could keep warm and dry.

This close to Alaska, the weather was much too cold for casual onlookers. If this had been a routine operation, no one but the retrieval crew would have turned out to watch. But this was not a routine retrieval operation, and there were nearly twenty people on the fantail. Two of them were medical personnel, ready to render emergency treatment if required. The rest of the crowd were there to watch, and to add their silent moral support.

Every man and woman not actively engaged in the safety and navigation of the ship was present. No one had called for them. There had been no announcement over the ship’s public address system. They had been drawn to the fantail by instinct, and by unspoken common consent.

At fifty feet per minute, the slowly-turning winch had taken almost exactly an hour to haul in three-thousand feet of cable. The onlookers had stood the entire time, braving the cutting cold of the Aleutian wind as foot-after- foot of dripping steel cable was reeled in.

They were coming to the end now. The damaged submersible was nearing the surface. In a minute or so, the Nereus would break through the wave tops — hauled unceremoniously back from the dark ocean depths.

The winch operator watched the cable meter on his control console scroll slowly, like the odometer of a car. “One hundred feet!” His words seemed to hang in the cold bright air. No one else made a sound.

“Fifty feet.” His voice was softer this time, as if he were a little unnerved by the oddly persistent ring of his own words.

“Twenty feet.” It was the last depth report he gave.

The water surrounding the cable was beginning to bubble and churn. The crowd held its collective breath as the water heaved and frothed. Almost without warning, the Nereus broke the surface.

The winch continued to turn, lifting the little submarine free of the water. The hull of the submersible was streaked with the sticky dark silt of the sea bottom. The orange and blue paint scheme of her hull looked almost toy-like, as if this were the plaything of some spoiled child. It suddenly seemed ludicrous to entrust human lives to such a frail and silly machine.

The riggers moved forward, attaching their tag-lines, and swinging the submersible into her cradle. The divers were moving almost before the sub was firmly seated, scrambling up the curved silt-covered sides of the hull to the hatch at the top. They spun the handle furiously, and the pressure seal relaxed with an audible hiss.

The hatch swung up and open, and one of the black-suited divers lowered himself through the opening immediately. His head and shoulders reappeared through the hatch a few seconds later. He raised his hands into the air, and pointed both of his thumbs toward the sky. “They’re alive!”

He said something else, but his words were lost in a roar of shouts and laughter.

They were alive!

CHAPTER 11

21^ST SPACE OPERATIONS CENTER