Clementine’s computer brain hummed, doing self-diagnostics and awakening subsystems that had been offline through years of cold silence. Acting on the new set of commands just uplinked from Pasadena, she recalculated her position precisely. Her telemetry instruments acquired laser-altimeter readings of the distance to the moon’s surface and took star-field images to get a precise fix on her orientation in lunar space.
Meanwhile her navigation subsystem completed a status check of fuels, pressures and temperatures. Her main processor calculated burn-rates and accelerations needed to put her on the new trajectory specified by the command sequence. She did all this mechanically, automatically and without any computation of her chances for imminent destruction, or mankind’s chances for survival.
But when she determined the specified new orbital parameters, her anomaly detector subroutine registered an error condition. She recalculated, but got the same result. Her new orbit included an impact point on the lunar surface at the center of Phaeon Crater. According to her standard operating procedures, she began a third recalculation before aborting the maneuver. If this calculation confirmed the anomaly, she would shut down all functions and stand by in safe-mode until another set of instructions was sent from earth to clear the error.
While she reprocessed her data, yet another anomaly occurred. Memory circuit-board five, which Clem had shut down years ago when it was determined to be the source of her previous trajectory miscalculations, suddenly came back online. It sent out a surge of electricity that propagated through several subsystems before dissipating via a grounding wire to Clementine’s metal hull. Clem quickly shut down the errant circuit board and then returned to her error diagnostic recalculation. But this time she got a new result. The error-status parameter had been replaced with a new string of letters: “GO-ON-CLEM—LLOYD.”
Clem’s logic boards processed this data string three times but were unable to determine its meaning. However, when she rechecked the overall mission status, the error condition was cleared and she was able to continue executing her orbital maneuver commands.
Not prone to pondering unknowables, Clem performed the next steps in the programmed sequence without a nanosecond’s hesitation. She warmed up her gas valves preparatory to firing her guidance thrusters. All was in readiness for her last maneuvers.
***
On the light cannon’s command deck, Tekkoo returned with a new report to Saurgon.
“We have detected a hoonah satellite. It fired thrusters to shift its orbit as it passed overhead.
“Hnnh,” Saurgon muttered. “This may be a serious threat. Delay your attack on the hoonah cities and make ready to destroy the satellite the next time it appears.”