‘bot from its anchor fittings and walked It over to the field generator assembly and started my detailed inspection.
Fortunately, the damage was not as bad as it had appeared from my first VR inspection. Several of the generators were badly damaged and wouldn’t be repairable, but the others looked like they could be repaired or operated using redundant systems. This was good news. I could reprogram the ship’s computer to stop looking at some of the more pessimistic trajectory options.
The repair work on the salvageable units was tedious but not, as it turned out, terribly difficult. I had to determine what components were damaged, check the ship’s spares inventory to see if replacements were available, then get them from storage and install them. If replacements were unavailable, then I had to see if I could circumvent the damage by using redundant systems or by reconfiguring the field.
I could have speeded up the process by activating several ‘bots and letting them bring the spare parts out from the stores locker using their self-guidance systems while I worked on the field generators. But for some reason I didn’t want to do that. Whenever I needed a spare part I walked the ‘bot I was using back to the dolly, rode back to the crew section, walked the ‘bot back to the cargo lock, went inside to the spares locker to get the parts and then reversed the process to get back to the rear of the ship to continue the repairs. I enjoyed the chance to relax when the ‘bot was making its trek up the ship’s spine.
And it wasn’t like Slave Master was from the Spacejack’s Guild; he couldn’t fine me for slacking or featherbedding.
The work went on for hours. I don’t know how many. I was able to almost forget about the kzinti and what they represented until my headache started to fade. I knew what that meant. Fritz was losing his ability to read my mind. I wondered if Slave Master would have me keep working once Fritz became blind to my thoughts.
My juju headache was almost completely gone as I piloted the ‘bot in through the cargo lock to get more repair parts. Slave Master quickly floated over to the ‘bot like it was a long lost friend, or a big piece of catnip. He stared down at the ‘bot and addressed it as if somehow I was “in” the ‘bot and not hanging weightless over at the VR workstation.
“End work. Continue later. Leave now.”
Who was I to argue? We left.
Back at the transfer hub, I let Slave Master go “down” the ladder to the spinning section before me. If I got lucky and he slipped and fell I wanted him below me, not above me. But no such luck We entered the spinning section of the ship without incident.
I felt heavy and weighed down by the centrifugal force of the spinning section, but Slave Master seemed buoyed up by the surrogate gravity. I guess his people don’t have any equivalent to Belters. Slave Master escorted me back to my cabin and left with his daily admonition to eat and rest. Like I needed the encouragement.
I decided I needed a shower before I resigned myself to another meatless meal. For some strange reason I felt good about how the day had gone and about myself. I still didn’t have a solution to the kzinti problem, but I had made real progress on solving a problem I could deal with. I’d just take things one step at a time and deal with each problem in its turn. The kzinti would have their own turn before too long.
Looking at myself in the mirror of the ‘fresher I felt disgust over my appearance. My image wasn’t that of a Belter, it was a Flatlander wirehead or maybe VR addict. Enough was enough. What was I? Could there be any question?
I pulled a hair trimmer out from a drawer in the ‘fresher and ran it over my face and head, being careful to leave a belt of close cropped hair running across the top of my head. That done I used a bottle of depilatory cream to finish the job and before long my unruly tangle of hair was replaced by a neatly trimmed Belter’s crest. This was the best I’d felt since coming out of coldsleep or maybe even longer. Now if I could just do something about those censored kzinti.
The timer for my medicine chimed and I reached for the vial containing my pills. If three were good, maybe more were better. I’d start taking four each time.
I’d have to ask Tom to bring me more soon. At this rate I’d be running out of them in a few days. As I stepped into the shower I reflected on a job that had started well and on other jobs waiting to be done.
The next few days went by in a haze of routine. Each day consisted of talking my medicine, eating meatless meals and working. Each day Fritz would attach himself to my mind and read my thoughts while I worked on the Bussard field generators without thinking about anything else. And each evening when Fritz had gotten out of my head I would look for information that would help me do something about the kzinti, by reviewing the data files from our first contact with them along with any new information the autocams had picked up- though this information was sketchy because many of the autocams had been damaged when the kzinti had attacked the Paradox. Many times I had to guess where the kzinti were by knowing where they weren’t.
I became able to recognize each of the kzinti occupying our ship and even gave more of them names as I learned their habits. Like Snaggle Tail, who spent a lot of time examining the Command Deck and other engineering areas. Or Shit Head, with the distinctive brown patch at the top of his head, who seemed to draw guard duty more often than the other rat-cats and who spent more time prowling the corridor in front of my quarters than any of the other guards. The kzinti seldom ventured into the freefall areas of the ship and when they did they didn’t stay long. What they were doing there was always a mystery to me. All told, there were about two dozen kzinti occupying our ship though most of them spent as little time here as possible, flitting over in one of their small ships when they had something to do and then rushing back to their orange warship at the first opportunity.
Slave Master and Fritz were different. They had moved into a pair of unused crew quarters and seemed to have taken up permanent residence on Obler’s Paradox. Fritz spent most of his time in his quarters, only occasionally venturing out to roam the empty halls. Slave Master spent his nights in his quarters and his days watching me work. A couple of guards always prowled the ship, or stood watch as I worked, but they were rotated back to their own ship every few days to be replaced by two new guards.
Some nights I used the autocams to prowl the ship, reminding myself of what it was the kzinti were threatening. I looked at the empty crew spaces and tried not to think about my friends who should have been laughing and working as we approached Vega. Scanning the coldsleep lockers I thought of each of the two hundred colonists who shared the ship with me and tried to make them come alive in my memory. Jeff, with his love of old books and music; Louis, with his passion for chess; and Carol, with her love for practical jokes and puns. They and all the rest lived in my dreams, when they weren’t interrupted by nightmares of kzinti on a killing spree. I looked longingly into the vacuum hangar at the singleships that we planned to use to explore a new asteroid belt. My ship, Trojan Rover, was as bright and shiny as the day I had watched the cargo loaders latch it into position in the hanger bay twenty three ship-years ago back at Juno. Would I ever get to fly it under the light of a new sun?
The kzinti and I had established a working rhythm. A way of accommodating ourselves to our situation. And each day my resentment for Slave Master and Fritz and Shit Head and all the other named and unnamed kzinti grew larger. Each time I reviewed the data files my reaction became stronger and more focused on striking back at the kzinti. I no longer ran retching to the ‘fresher when I watched the scenes of death and destruction, but thought of ever more imaginative ways to pay them back for what they had done.
Each day it became harder to accept our fate, to not make my imagined payback real and strike out in revenge. But whenever I had those thoughts I remembered how easily the kzinti had overpowered the crew of our ship. And so I focused on the problems I could solve, the field generators, and tried-unsuccessfully-not to think about the problem that seemed to have no answer. But each day I grew more curt with the kzinti, less afraid that I’d offend them and incur their wrath. I should have been afraid of them. I knew the danger they represented, but I just didn’t worry about that any longer. They could kill me but that was all they could do. And I’m sure they knew that doing that would destroy their only hope of getting off this cosmic Flying Dutchman.
Fritz must have sensed my growing hatred for the kzinti, but if those rat-cats had done things like this before, then they must be used to being hated by now. ???
After almost a week of work, most done in freefall at the Telepresence Operations Center, I finished the last of the repairs to the field generators. I had them back up so that they should be able to feed hydrogen to the drive at seventy-eight percent of its maximum rated fuel flow rate. This was better than I had hoped for but I didn’t expect Slave Master to praise me for this accomplishment. I wasn’t disappointed. He took this information with a low growl and then asked about the remaining work. I explained that now I would have to finish reprogramming
