(24) Day 21 1305 A Long Heavy Hike
Upon reaching Radius, Dirk paused to drink most of his water – no point in carrying the extra weight anywhere other than in his stomach and bloodstream. He’d sweated quite a bit racing out to get the package. The guidance provided by the Company concerning package retrieval in his online orientation training consisted primarily of the general rule to “move such that you avoid overexertion indicated by perspiration.” To Dirk’s mind, and based on his experience, that guidance failed to take two key factors into account. First, although Mars was generally cold, in the template zone where the City was located (even before the terraforming had begun) temperatures of 10 to 20 degrees Celsius during the spring and summer were not uncommon. After 100 years of terraforming, 25 degree Celsius highs occurred occasionally. Second, the suit designed to protect from cosmic rays and rapid dehydration was incredibly warm – hence the ‘sweatsuit’ nickname.
Therefore, Dirk always (almost always) filled up the storage bladders on the suits, and still frequently ran out of water. He didn’t know if it was because of the nature of his work, tramping around the Crane Farm and retrieving stray packages or that he was used to moving a lot and didn’t have the discipline to slow down.
He’d asked his dad about it, and to his surprise (especially since he realized that his dad knew that a not insignificant portion of his water usage was due to rock climbing and parkour practice) his dad was not displeased by his excessive water use.
“Son, I’m not too worried about you burning through water as you work. You are now in effect the single point of failure in the effort to get the Elevator built. Keeping you hydrated is essential for the entire project, and the project is the keystone of the Martian development program. Once the Elevator installation is complete we’ll both increase our capability to safely import water from asteroids and load the equipment and systems necessary to melt the water already here but currently locked up in unusable forms. Elevator completion will ensure we not only have sufficient water for daily use, but an emergency reserve.
“What do you mean, ‘emergency reserve,” asked Dirk. “I thought the ship was our emergency supply.”
‘It is,” said his dad, “And there is some surface water emerging due to the microclimate created by the greenhouses and power plant. However, if anything catastrophic happened to the Power Plant or heaven forbid, the ship, we’d be completely out of luck. Humans can survive for only three days at most without water. I’d feel much better with an additional supply.”
“So maybe I should be more conservation minded,” Dirk said.
“No,” said his dad with a laugh. “If you weren’t going through so much water I’d suspect you were malingering, playing video games instead of working.”
So his only regret at the moment was that he lacked even more water to consume – he had a critical task to perform, getting Radius (and himself) back to the port in time to receive the Titan delivery.
Radius stood balanced on his good right leg, with his left leg still bent at a 30-degree angle out to the side.
“Ok Radius,” Dirk said, “Let’s get started. This thing is superlight, and will fit in my backpack, which you’ll have to wear - I’m going to wear you.”
“Say again?” said Radius.
“Here’s what we are going to do. You’ll hold onto my shoulders and with your good leg you’ll take as much of your weight as you can. We’ll spider along the chasm, heading down to that narrow section. When we get there, you’ll shift over, then I’ll shift, and I’ll push you up until you can grab the top and haul yourself over. Then I’ll climb up and we’ll think about the walk back.”
“Ok,” said Radius. “That will put huge stresses on your arms and hands.”
“Well,” said Dirk with a smile, “It will make me stronger for the next race with Tom.”
“Ok,” said Radius, and put his arm around Dirk’s shoulders.
“A human would have asked how we were going to get across the jump,” Dirk thought to himself. “But robots don’t ask useless questions. He knew I’d explain.”
The first weight shift caught Dirk off guard – it shouldn’t have, but it did. He squeezed hard on the rock with his hands and pushed up on the thin footholds. Radius wedged his right foot into a crack and the weight became manageable.
“That was harder than expected,” Dirk thought to himself as he breathed heavily on the surface, the transit completed. Although he hadn’t said anything during the climb, it had constituted a major challenge – his forearms were still burning with the lactic acid from the exertion. The few seconds before Radius picked up his foot and found his next foothold had severely taxed Dirk’s climbing capabilities.
Shaking out his arms as Radius stood calmly on his right leg, Dirk said, “This is going to be much easier.”
“Indeed,” said Radius.
“Ok, let’s go slowly. When I say ‘left’ you can shift your right foot, and I’ll step with my right. Wait - instead of ‘left’ I’ll say ‘step’. I’ll get confused otherwise,” Dirk laughed.
“So, I say ‘step’ you step with your right foot, I step with my left keeping our weight on my right leg, and then we’ll switch.”
“Roger,” said Radius.
“Let’s go – slowly” Dirk said, remembering the unpleasant surprise of that first ‘belay’ during the climb.
“Step!”
It worked. Moving slowly, they gradually worked up to almost a normal pace. However, any major rocks or cracks brought them to a complete stop. Radius was too heavy for Dirk to adjust their course while in motion. Dirk would either move ahead, in effect turning them to the right, or back up aligning them to the left. After passing the obstacle they shifted the opposite way to resume their intended track to the Crane Farm.
As Dirk said, “Halfway there!” pleased with their time, Radius fell to the ground, pulling Dirk down with him.
“Oof!” Dirk picked himself up and looked at Radius – Radius was holding himself up as if doing a pushup leaning to his right side – his left leg from the knee down was laying on the ground. A dark puddle had formed below his broken left leg.
“Radius, what happened?” Dirk asked, stupidly. The walking had obviously stressed the remaining “joint and tendons” in Radius’ leg and it had broken off. Dirk had probably had them moving too quickly.
“What is that fluid leaking out?” Dirk asked, not giving Radius time to answer his first question.
“Coolant,” said Radius.
“From where?” Asked Dirk.
“All robots of my model have a cooling system that circulates fluid around our batteries and then out to our extremities. We have panels in our legs that act like an elephant’s ears, allowing the heat to dissipate in the air. That fluid is leaking from my cooling system,” explained Radius.
“Can you make it stop?” Dirk asked, concerned. He was so sensitized to water issues, living on a desert planet, that he immediately treated the leak as a major problem.
“No. I can stop the pump but would then soon overheat. This seems to be an issue that while not significant on Earth (I could shut down and be transported to a repair facility) is a major problem here.”
Dirk thought quickly. “We can put a tourniquet on it, using my belt.”
“Won’t work,” said Radius, shaking his head, still in the pushup position. My leg is non-compressible, so you cannot exert pressure on the hose.”
“Here,” Dirk said, knelling at Radius’s right side. “Let me roll you over at least so we can elevate the leg while we think about it. Now you are just draining it.” Radius picked up one arm and then other allowing Dirk to remove the backpack Radius still wore.
Dirk pulled Radius over and using his own legs as a ramp, slid him down onto his back.
“Elevate your leg,” Dirk said, helping him. The coolant stopped flowing.
“It’s working!” Dirk said. But after another 30 seconds the coolant resumed leaking.
> “Maybe we can plug the leak,” Dirk suggested.
“I don’t think we have the materials necessary to fabricate a plug here,” said Radius.
“The bag!” Dirk said.
“What?” Said Radius.
“The bag the delivery came in. There is always plastic wrapping around whatever has been shipped because of the contamination controls. We could wrap your leg in that, and tie it off, containing the leak.”
“Yes, but, “ said Radius, “It is illegal to open the diplomatic pouches.”
Dirk paused. “We won’t open the package, we’ll unwrap it. It is probably covered with some other wrapper.”
The plastic wrap prevented microorganisms from contaminating the product, so another wrapper preserving the concealed nature of the package was unlikely – unwrapping was thus a risk.
More concerned with Radius than package protection, Dirk removed the package from the backpack. He’d already discarded the yellow landing cushioning. The diplomatic pouch was a heavy zippered black bag. Unlike on Earth, the bag was unlocked. A lock to be effective would have to be heavy, and since there was no way to avoid detection if someone had wanted to steal it (the custody chain had only a few links) there was no point in wasting the energy to transport the lock.
The package was about the size of a shoebox, and very light. He carefully removed the plastic surrounding the box, but didn’t open the box itself.
Pulling his riggers belt off he knelt down next to Radius’ “bleeding” leg and quickly wrapped the plastic around the broken joint. He then took his belt and wrapped it tightly around the bag, holding it closed against the leg. He fed the end of the belt over and under the clasp and pulled it tight. “Lower your leg, Radius,” He said. Dirk gently put his knee on the back of Radius’ leg and carefully pulled hard on the belt, ensuring it was tight as he could make it.
“Give it a minute.”
Radius lay there.
The fluid began to pool in the bag, but did not seem to be leaking out.
“Looks good,” said Radius. "Thanks for the expeditious repair.”
“I wouldn’t say repair – patch job, maybe.” Dirk helped Radius stand up. He put Radius’ leg in the backpack with the package. He zipped up the backpack with the foot sticking out of the top.
How is your other leg?” Dirk asked.
Radius looked down – “Fine” he said. “Though we should go carefully so I don’t stress it any more than necessary.”
They started walking again, more slowly this time. Dirk was getting tired. Robots were self propelled, or would use the transportation available to the humans with whom they were working – there was no reason therefore to economize their weight. In addition, on Earth power was effectively unlimited, and though Radius had been modified somewhat for Mars use, the modifications were similar to those made for robots working in extreme environments on Earth. The robotic skin was more robust to handle dust storms and the cooling system more advanced, but this resilience enhancing did not extend to weight reduction.
Dirk was regretting that design decision now.
After 10 minutes Radius spoke up – “Someone is coming toward us.”
Dirk looked up from the ground where he had been carefully choosing his steps. “Hey, that’s my Dad!”
Dirk and Radius kept walking.
(25) Day 21 1445 Dad Helps
“Hey Dad, what are you doing here?” Dirk yelled when his dad was in range.
His dad broke into a jog and when he reached them exclaimed, “What happened to you Radius?”
“I broke my left knee joint traversing a rift face as we pursued another stray package,” Radius answered.
“That’s terrible!” Dirk’s dad responded. “Where is your lower leg now?
“It’s in the backpack.” Mr. K walked around and saw the foot protruding from the backpack.
Dirk spoke up. “I’m afraid were are going to have to replace the entire leg – the connection joint seems to have sheared off. But Dad, why are you out here anyway?”
“I heard there was a stray alarm, and when you didn’t answer came out to look for you,” Mr. K said. “Where did it happen?”
Dirk turned slightly (he didn’t want to spend the energy to turn he and Radius all the way around and pointed back over his shoulder.
“You see that row of rocks, slightly darker than the rest of the ground, about a mile east? That line of rocks is the edge of the rift. If you look down about two o’clock that is where it happened. We found the package in a crater not too far past the rift.”
“And you had to help Radius the entire way back?” Mr. K asked as he took the backpack, and maneuvered into position on Radius’ right side to help him walk the rest of the way to the Control Tower.
As they reached the Tower, Dirk said, “Whew, that was quite a hike. Radius, you should lay off the cookies man, you’re heavy!”
They lowered Radius into a chair.
“Dirk, are you still wearing your weight vest?” Mr. K asked.
Radius looked at Dirk and Dirk looked back – “Brilliant,” he said. “I sure am.”
Mr. K laughed, “That intensified the workout.”
(26) Day 21 1600 Package delivery
Dirk and his dad drank a liter each of water and sat down for a few minutes. “Radius, are you ok for now?” Dirk asked. “The Titan Crane is due in 15 minutes. Once we get that taken care of I’ll drive you up to the repair shop.”
“Will you be able to manage the delivery on your own?” asked Radius.
“Sure,” Dirk replied, actually uncertain about his ability to move the Titan load off the landing pad.
“Hey son, want me to stay here and help you move the Titan?” his dad asked as they walked over to the control tower.
“No, thanks. I realized I can use the Land Crane I refueled to tow the load and the Titan.”
“You refueled a Crane? How’d you do that?” his dad asked, surprised. “We didn’t plan for Crane refueling at this point.”
“I can show you later. I reconfigured one of the Cranes that was almost completely out of fuel as a pump/transfer manifold. Since the pumps are driven by electric motors, like everything else on the Crane, I routed the power directly to the fuel pump and detached the intake and discharge lines. Now when I start that Crane, it powers only the fuel pump. I put the intake on the Crane from which I want to extract fuel, and fill the one I want to use.”
“Great thinking!” his dad said, slapping him on the back. “And you’ve increased your productivity 1000%. We should have thought of that. Zero waste!”
“Thanks, Dad. I need to land this Titan now. I’ll meet you later.”
“Ok - take care of Radius,” he said.
“Will do,” Dirk replied.
Dirk turned the Tow Crane, as he now referred to it, toward the City, and accelerated up the berm. He enjoyed driving the Crane, and almost started smiling – “This is not a pleasure trip- Radius is injured,” he admonished himself.
A small smile persisting on his face, they made good time back to the City and he drove up to City Hall.
Diplo pouch in hand, he unnecessarily said, “Wait here,” to Radius. “I’ll be right back.”
“Roger,” said Radius.
Dirk walked in and headed down the hall to the police office. Only for late night deliveries did he have to ring the bell. The rest of the time the door to the preliminary scan area remained open. There was no wait – he’d never seen any other citizens in there, or even heard of someone visiting.
“Package delivery,” he said loudly.
After a minute he heard the Sergeant coming down the stairs.
“Hand the package to me now,” the Sergeant said as he stopped a few feet in from Dirk, so Dirk had to walk toward him to hand the package over.
Dirk tried to not let his annoyance show, though he was glad the Sergeant didn’t mention the lack of packaging.
“Very well, Dirk,”
the Sergeant, said. “You may go now.”
“Ok,” Dirk said, purposely omitting the “Yes sir, have a nice day” or some other pleasantry that would have both been extended to him on Earth and expected in return. “Maybe the Sergeant was socially retarded before arriving here – perhaps that’s why he came to Mars,” Dirk thought. “But that is no reason for unnecessary rudeness.”
Only on planet for a relatively short time, even Dirk understood that courtesy dominated social interaction on Mars, much more than on Earth. The lack of anywhere else to go after fighting with someone made it especially necessary to get along. Courtesy, a social lubricant, was employed liberally. The formality of address provided a buffer between people, helping to reduce interpersonal conflict. It had taken a week or so, and a couple of lectures from his dad, before Dirk grasped the utility of the program, but the “Martian way” had now become a habit. The Sergeant had obviously not comprehended the message, or alternatively, he was purposely rude as a way to remind people of his official status, which rendered him, he seemed to think, beyond social considerations. Dirk wondered what he did every day and if he had any friends. It certainly didn’t seem like it.
“Ok Radius, that’s done. Now for the important stuff – taking care of you.” They drove off.
(27) Day 21 1700 The Sergeant and Director discuss Butterflies
“They arrived?” the Director asked.
“Yes Ma’am,” the Sergeant said. He opened the box and began laying the objects on the table. They looked like electronic butterflies with oversized wings – drones. The wings, designed to enable them to fly in the less dense atmosphere of Mars were a liability in windstorms, which entailed that the drones were deployable only during periods of calm weather. However, since the object of their surveillance would also avoid going out and about during windstorms, this did not constitute a significant limitation on their utility.
“These little guys will restore 87% of our surveillance capability,” the Sergeant explained. The previous set of drones had broken quickly in the Martian environment. This new batch was designed to last a year. The Director doubted they would actually last that long, but even 6 months would be enough to enable them keep tabs on anyone snooping around their various projects.
The Sergeant laid each of the butterflies out on the table with the built in charging capability. “They will be ready to deploy in about 30 minutes, but we can program them now,” he explained.
He pushed at his tablet with the stylus and brought up a picture of Dirk. He then placed the tablet on the desk facing the drones. Grabbing another tablet, he brought up the drone control application and launched the “Acquaintance” portion of the set up program.
“This will enable the drones to recognize our subjects,” he said. “They appear in order of age, from youngest to oldest.”
“Except for the baby,” the Director said. “Why isn’t he in the system?”
“He is, but not in the surveillance system.”
“Why not? He should be. What about the kidnapping risk? We could use the system to find him.”
The Sergeant, thinking quickly for an appropriate response to the idiotic kidnapping rationale paused before defaulting to his customary reply – enthusiastic agreement. “You know, you are right. He should be in there. I hadn’t bothered to put him in because I figured he wouldn’t be doing anything on his own – we could track his parents and always find him, especially since this is such a small town.”
The Director smiled smugly.
“You’re right, you’re right,” the Sergeant repeated.
“Anyway,” he said, shaking his head. “This review of the subjects will enable the drones to recognize everyone, except the baby, in the City.”
The small light green LED on the drones began flashing. He then touched the surface of the tablet and the faces and identifying data of all the inhabitants of Mars scrolled across – all of it recorded by the drones.
“We can leave them to it,” the Sergeant said.
“Very well,” said the Director. “How is our other project coming along?”
“Nicely,” said the Sergeant. “A paper message came with the drones – sales on the Moon are over $2 billion for this quarter.”
“Excellent. No more about that. I’m going home.”
“Yes ma’am,” said the Sergeant.
(28) Day 21 1630 Problem discovery
Dirk drove over to the spare parts depot. The entire City’s spare parts were housed in a non-descript building without windows adjacent to the Power Plant. According to the original City design, there should only be one spare parts storage facility. However, shortly after Dirk arrived another restricted to ‘Government Official’s Only’ was printed.
“That’s crazy,” Dirk had said to his dad as they watched the printer at work on the new building. “Why a separate building? They have very little equipment, and what they do have can be serviced out of the main facility, or by special orders.”
“I don’t understand it either,” said Mr. K. “If they were paying for it themselves it would never be built, but they are using the taxes they charge the Company, so for them it is effectively ‘free’. They waste materials on a whim…”
“Why build a spare parts storage facility anyway?” Dirk asked his dad. “There is plenty of room on the ship.”
“Redundancy,” his dad replied. ‘We do store critical parts on the ship, but what if something happens to it?”
“Like what?” Dirk asked.
“It is the most complex piece of gear on the planet, full of fuel, machinery, and other flammable materials. All things susceptible to engineering causalities, including fire,” explained his dad.
“Oh…” said Dirk, the significance slowly dawning on him as he remember the ventilation fan fire. “If a casualty destroys the ship, and spares were stored there, we’d be totally out of luck.”
“Exactly,” his dad replied. “Even this storage facility fails to provide the redundancy I’d like us to maintain. We are one deep for most systems. If not for Tom’s genius we’d have been in extemis more than once in the past year.”
Dirk hadn’t realized, when back on Earth, how often things broke and had to be fixed. Spare parts on Mars occupied an inordinate amount of space and a large percentage of the deliveries. On Earth broken or malfunctioning consumer electronics were sent back in exchange for immediate replacement delivery. It was annoying to have do without for a while (sometimes up to a full day!) but manageable. On Mars you had what you had, and made it work or did without.
Even additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, didn’t help significantly. 3D printing could provide a lot of simple parts, but they had not yet delivered the full range of printer “ink” to Mars yet, so the utility of the printers was limited. In addition, several systems had been inadequately designed for actual Martian operating conditions. In an effort to economize (in part driven by Government requirements) the Company had decreased the robustness of, for example, the long-range pipelines system. This had proven to be, as his dad said, a false economy. Much of the metal printing ink was now unexpectedly dedicated to pipeline maintenance and repair, reducing the ability to print parts for non-essential, but highly desired by City inhabitants, consumer goods.
“Come on, Radius,” Dirk said as he helped him out of the Crane and into the storage space. The parts distribution system was built like a Japanese vending machine. After tapping your communicator to the receiver pad, you opened the locker containing the desired part. Small, pilferable items were released one at a time. Larger items, whose size provided protection against theft, were stored in their own lockers.
The robot parts in storage were few, due to the small number of robots on the planet so far.
Dirk removed Radius’ leg from the backpack and typed the part number of the knee joint into the tablet mounted inside the door.
“No luck,” said Dirk. “Not in stock.” We’ll have to check for the entire leg. He
typed the leg part number into the tablet.
“Success!” He said happily. “It is at 4337 DJ – H.” He helped Radius to a table at the center of the room. “Radius, you wait here. No point in you climbing around to get your own leg.”
“Ok,” said Radius.
Dirk went back, found the locker, and opened it with his Company card. Radius was officially a “Cyborg” employee, with a “health” plan and retirement benefits. The robots of Radius’ advanced type had not yet been around long enough to retire, but the legal framework was in place in case they ever wanted to. Some people thought it was a stupid concept. They could upgrade and never stop, but a robot civil rights case in the early part of the century had laid the groundwork for such benefits, and Radius was now ‘covered’.
Dirk, as a lame and sort of mean joke had asked him one afternoon, “Hey Radius, what are you going to do when you retire?”
“I haven’t thought about it,” said Radius seriously. “What are you going to do?”
“That is too far in the future for me to even think about,” said Dirk.
“Me too,” agreed Radius.
He brought the leg back to Radius. “Should we do the repairs here or do you want to do it at home?” Dirk asked.
“The tools are here,” said Radius. “It is more efficient to execute the replacement now.”
“Ok,” Dirk said. “Are you in the Book?”
“Yes,” Radius answered. “Model number B-263-54.”
Dirk typed it into the appropriate technical manual application on his Book and the schematics popped up.
“I’m going to skip the troubleshooting – we know what the problem is.”
Dirk read for a few minutes standing, and then sat down on the table next to Radius. “This is going to take me a while to review – I don’t want to mess you up more, and these parts are expensive.”
“Understood,” said Radius.
Finished reading the procedures, Dirk stood. “Ok, Alpha tool kit, which is right here,” he said, opening a drawer near the door. “Radius, can you turn your circulatory system off yourself, or do I need to do it? Not the whole system, I mean, only to isolate the leg.”
“No, if I could do that I would have done it when the break occurred. That is not part of my conscious control nervous system. My consciousness is not specifically tied to a body – I can use multiple body types and configurations. The split is a result of differences in the development rates of the cognitive and the physical hardware and software. The body actually runs my movement on its own – I give directional inputs and the body decides how to get there.”
“Maybe there is a deficiency in that programming then. That would explain your poor lateral movement.”
“No,” said Radius. “The lateral movement deficiency is a trade off with forward motion speed. My designers decided that they should optimize carrying loads at high speed moving forward, assuming that there would be few times when my type would have to move laterally at high speed.”
“Makes sense, I guess,” agreed Dirk. “But it is sure is a bummer for you now.”
“Indeed,” said Radius.
“So I need to look up the flow/isolation diagram for your cooling system.”
“Yes, but I can tell you the valve is in my lower back on the right hand side. It is colored light blue.”
“Ok, let’s roll you over.” He pushed Radius up onto his right side and opened up the panel with a small screwdriver.
“I think I see it. But there are no handles and it is not a screw turn mechanism.”
“You have to use the tool designed for the cooling system. It is the same color and is in the toolbox on the upper right hand side of the second shelf.”
“You mean there is a different tool for every system? That’s stupid.”
“Actually, they did it as a secondary check to ensure careful maintenance. It forces a double check to ensure that the proper fitting is being turned. Misaligning the system by turning the valves, as it would with you, can cause rapid organ damage, increasing maintenance costs.”
“Ok,” said Dirk sheepishly.
Dirk assumed Radius was referring to ensuring humans performed the maintenance properly - back on Earth the maintenance was mostly done by other robots, who wouldn’t make such mistakes.
Dirk closed the valve as Radius suggested and reread the section on removing the leg in the Book.
“I think I’m ready. Re-plumbing your cooling and hydraulic systems is going to be the hard part. The electrical connectors consist of simple cable sockets, but the hydraulic lines look tricky.”
“Have you isolated the hydraulic system already?” Radius asked.
“No. I’m going to do that now. Ready?”
“Ready,” said Radius.
Dirk turned the valve with the appropriate tool and then, using the adjustable wrench began disconnecting the hydraulic lines.
“Hey Radius, if it is ok with you I think I’m going to detach the leg first from your hip and then disconnect the cables. I think that will be easier – it will provide more play for the wrench.”
“Ok,” said Radius.
Dirk detached the leg from hip by releasing the tension on the assembly holding the main structural femur equivalent to the hip socket. He had to push Radius over a little on the table to give himself room to work. The procedure made the work much easier – he quickly detached the cooling and hydraulic hoses, losing only the fluid downstream of the values – it barely made a quarter sized puddle. He then attached the hoses and electrical junctions, pushed the leg back onto the socket, tightened down the joint and was done! Putting the tools in a pile on the table he stepped back, pleased with his work.
“Replace the tools,” said Radius.
“Your welcome,” said Dirk, a little annoyed, but placing the tools back in their specific holders. “Let’s fill your hydraulic and cooling reservoirs and get this baby turned back on.”
Dirk purchased coolant and hydraulic fluid and filled the two reservoirs accessed through Radius’ back.
“Hang your leg over the side Radius,” Dirk said. “The technical manual says to do that to ensure a complete fill and bleed off the air in the new leg.”
After 10 minutes the fill completed.
“All right, you ready to energize?” Dirk asked.
“Ready”, said Radius. Dirk turned the ‘on’ switch to the ‘on’ position with the appropriate screwdriver.
Nothing happened.
“Hold on, let me check the tech manual. Maybe I put something back together incorrectly.”
Dirk read through the book and fiddled with Radius’ leg. No joy.
“Did you check the indicator lights in the ankle?” Radius finally asked.
“No, it doesn’t mention that in the Book,” Dirk said.
“Read the section on general troubleshooting. It is in that section, and the first line of each procedure recommends checking those general steps first.”
Dirk looked at the book again. “Oh.” He said. “There it is. Sorry. Ok, let’s look. We should have green, white, green. And…”
None of the lights were illuminated.
“No lights Radius. What does that mean?” Dirk asked as he typed in the Book.
“I’m going to take the leg off again and recheck the connections. Maybe I didn’t get the socket seated properly,” Dirk said.
Dirk detached the leg and rechecked all the connections. He put it back on and faced the facts. “Radius, I think it is a bad leg. It seems to be missing the motherboard.”
“That’s not good,” Radius said. “Each limb is self controlled – containing its own processing capabilities.”
“Why did they do that?” Dirk asked.
“As I alluded to earlier, by putting the movement specific processors in each of the limbs, the designers allowed for upgrades in limb capability to proceed without requiring corresponding upgrades in the control systems. My mind gives the most general sort of
movement commands. The limbs execute those general commands in accordance with their capability levels. This means that the development of limbs, software, brain hardware, etc., can all proceed at different paces. For example, I can operate with 7.0 version legs and 4.0 version arms, 10.0 version hands and a 30.0 version brain. No mind/body compatibilities issues arise because my ‘mind’ makes the simplest of commands which are then interpreted and executed by the body,” Radius explained.
“Ok,” Dirk said. “But we need to install another leg. This is getting expensive.”
Noticing they’d been working for two hours, and that Dirk had missed lunch, Radius asked, “Do you require a meal break?”
“No, let’s get this done. I can’t leave you here while I stuff my face.”
“Thank you,” said Radius.
Dirk went through the process again, faster this time. He triple checked the connections and before attaching the leg at the hip joint had an idea.
“Hey Radius, can I turn the leg on without completely seating it so we can test for response?”
“Yes, you can,” said Radius. “As long as there is power you can cycle the leg.”
“Great.” Dirk powered the leg on.
Nothing.
“Not again!” Dirk said, frustrated. “Repairs shouldn’t be this hard. We are not rebuilding a motherboard – we’re only installing a leg. What now? This was the last left leg.”
“What is behind the locked section?” Radius asked, pointing to the building addition the Government had printed.
“That’s a good question.” Dirk walked over. “And it is locked with a padlock! That is weird. Why would anyone lock a bunch of lockers that you have to open with your communicator? When a locker is opened it is recorded and charged, and there is no one here to steal anything anyway. Where would they go?”
Dirk peered through the gaps between the thin, but rigid strings of metal from floor to ceiling that fence like, blocked the entrance.
“Looks like it is another complete set of spare parts lockers. I wonder why? We can ask Tom. Maybe they are for the Power Plant or some other activity we don’t know about – but tonight it means you are hobbling home.
“Is there anything we can fashion a crutch out of?” Radius asked. Dirk looked around. There was not the usual bunch of junk that accumulates near a Power Plant, because if it wasn’t necessary it would not have been brought to Mars, but there was some piping and pressurized bottles of leftover construction patching foam.
Dirk sorted through the stuff for minute and returned with a six-foot length of pipe, some duct tape and foam.
“How about this?” he asked. Dirk made a basket out of tape at one end of the pipe. He then covered the final spaces in the basket to make a tape bag.
“Get ready to stand,” he said to Radius. Dirk sprayed the insulation foam into the tape bag and put a last bit of tape over the remaining holes.
“Stand up, Radius, and put this under your arm. The foam will harden to form the crutch top. You’ll have to grip the pipe, but that won’t be a problem for you, right, with those super hands?”
Radius stood with Dirk’s help and gently rested his weight on the top of the crutch, allowing the foam to harden in position.
“I’m impressed,” he said. “It fits perfectly.”
“Your welcome. Let’s go get some dinner. Then we’ll ask Tom about the cage.”
“Very well,” said Radius.
(29) Day 21 2100 A cage mystery
They stopped at Dirk’s house and Dirk grabbed a sandwich. Leaving Radius at the house he headed over to see Tom.
“Hey Dirk, we are putting T2 to bed. Be out in a minute,” Tom said, letting Dirk in the house.
“Ok,” said Dirk. He sat in the living room for a few minutes looking at some books while Tom and his wife Mandy performed T2’s bedtime routine.
“Hi Dirk,” Tom said softly as he came into the living room.
“Hey Tom,” Dirk said. “What’s in the building addition behind the cage barrier adjacent to PowerGEN3?”
Tom thought for a moment. “You mean the spare parts lockers? Spare parts.” He laughed.
“I know that. I mean, what is in the set of lockers locked behind the fencing in the building addition?”
“What do you mean?” Tom asked. “I can only remember the spare parts lockers. You grabbed the macerator parts for me from there last week, remember?”
“Yeah, I know, but there is a fence dividing off part of the space. Let’s go, and I’ll show you.”
“Ok,” Tom said. “Be gentle with the door so you don’t wake T2. Until he’s been asleep for about 20 minutes the slightest noise can wake the little monkey up.”
They left the house quietly.
“Why are you interested in the spare parts lockers? And where is Radius?”
Dirk explained his interest.
“Whoa,” said Tom. “How is he now?”
“Fine I guess,” Dirk said. “He’d be better if both legs we tried hadn’t been duds.”
They arrived at the building. Dirk’s communicator opened the door and he immediately took Tom over to the gated area.
“This wasn’t here before a month ago,” he said. “Who put this here?”
“I don’t know,” said Dirk. “And check out the lock.”
“This is a police lock used for confiscated buildings and in police stations. Why is it here?”
“I don’t know man, - I’m asking you,” Dirk said with a laugh.
“And why are there lockers behind the fence? This doesn’t make any sense. And how did I not notice this?” Tom said, befuddled.
“You are pretty busy with other stuff. I suppose we could ask the Sergeant tomorrow,” Dirk said.
“Yes, I suppose so,” Tom agreed hesitantly. “Do you think any of those spare parts lockers hold a Radius compatible leg?”
“It sure looks like it,” said Dirk. “See, here is the one where I unpacked the dud leg, and if you look over there the color designation is identical to the set on the wall behind the fence.”
Tom looked. “I think you are right. I’d suggest we go now, but the Sergeant would not take kindly to being disturbed after his extensive working hours,” Tom said.
Dirk smiled. The Sergeant was known as the laziest man on Mars.
“But we shouldn’t leave Radius legless overnight,” Tom concluded.
“He is a robot…” said Dirk.
“Yes,” said Tom, “But with a highly developed consciousness. Some even say they are no less conscious, and thus no less people, than you or I.”
“I’m not sure about that,” Dirk said.
“Oh really,” said Tom, getting a little annoyed. “And you know this how? Having to function without a leg is like you or I being immobilized in bed with a broken leg. Probably even worse because we can compensate and get around by crawling if we have too. Radius can’t- he has cut outs intended to prevent movement when severely damaged to prevent additional harm to his locomotive systems.”
“Then how did he use the crutches?” Dirk asked.
“The crutch based movement is within the general parameters. But he can’t crawl; and anyway, you don’t leave a friend injured when you can help him out.”
“Ok,” Dirk said. “But that is why I came to get you!” he said defensively attempting to deflect the problem on Tom. “I’m trying to help him out.”
“Alright, alright” said Tom. “So what do we do now?”
“We could ask my Dad,” suggested Dirk.
“That’s a good idea, on the one hand, but I’m thinking he’ll value plausible deniability if we do what I think is required.”
Tom thought for a moment.
“Here’s what we’ll do. Take Radius to your dad’s workshop. Then meet me at the compressor on the side of Cogeneration Unit 1. It’s not online. Dress for parkour.”
Not sure where Tom was going with this, Dirk agreed and headed home to take Radius to his da
d’s workshop.
By the time he arrived at his dad’s house he thought he had figured out what Tom had in mind.
(30) Day 21 2300 Radius’ Data Analysis
Radius sat at home, with the sensation he referred to as his “uneasy condition” at high levels, for reasons that remained concealed. His vital signs, or key operational parameters, were in the normal range, thanks to the refill of coolant and hydraulic fluids. The feeling of unease was not due to a loss of power – he was sitting in his chair with the magnetic resonant charging built in. His balance was off because of the missing leg, but since he was sitting down that shouldn’t be sufficiently significant to cause the overall system unease he was experiencing. Indeed, the sensation was not anything the normal metrics could track. He’d developed his own metrics for the sensation and had been recording them himself on his health app. He ran several quadratic equations changing the variable based on his experience of the unease sensation. Attributing a quantity to the sensation and graphing it mathematically, a language he felt more comfortable with in examining his own sensations than the languages available for recording in text provided insight into the condition. However, as he reviewed the graphs, he saw his sense of unease had reached its highest level, not when he was being helped back from the rift but immediately after Dirk had left him at home to talk to Tom. The data made him wish that he had a greater vocabulary with which to articulate the sensation – the height of the graph did not seem an adequate way to capture the full intensity of his experience (he didn’t say ‘feeling’).
“What’s the status?” asked Radius as Dirk walked in the door.
“Ummm, I think we are going to sneak into the fenced locker section and get you another leg.”
Radius paused before answering, suspecting he was going to upset Dirk. “Isn’t that stealing?”
Dirk had been thinking about this as he walked home from the storage building. “Theft requires taking something without paying for it, right? Therefore, it would be stealing if we were not acquiring the leg from the Company that imported the spare parts and funded your health plan. To open the locker required payment acknowledgement from the card – if you pay for something, that is not stealing, right? So to my mind, (for the most part) Tom’s plan to break into the locker from the power plant is not stealing. Acquiring another leg is an appropriate response to a medical emergency,” he thought to himself.
“However, the central question concerns who had put in the fence and the lock, and why. Nothing about this situation makes sense!”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Dirk, his answer for Radius ready. “It’d be stealing if 1) we didn’t pay for it, which we have to do to open the locker, and 2) if we didn’t work for the Company that owns the spare parts. But since we are paying for it, and we work for the Company, (it is a Company planet after all – no Company, no life on Mars) we are not stealing.”
“But it still looks like theft to an outside impartial observer,” Radius said.
“You are right about that,” Dirk said, “And if that outside observer is the Sergeant I’m a little bit nervous about his interpretation. Tom said that it was the kind of lock used by police forces on earth. Why go to the trouble of bringing such a heavy lock here?” he thought.
“Based on the evidence, I’m not sure this is proper, but if you are determined to go (which I also appreciate) you should go now,” said Radius.
“Yeah, you’re right. Wish me luck.”
“Wait,” said Radius. “You still have your weights on.”
“Doh,” said Dirk. “I sure as heck don’t need them on now – we may have to move fast. Good catch. The forces of habit are strong.”
Dirk took off his weighted clothes and dressed again. “I feel so much lighter! But it makes me sleepy, because I usually only feel this light when I shower and go to bed.”
“No time to sleep now,” said Radius.
“It is late. I’ll be tired at work tomorrow – but hopefully you’ll be restored to full operational capability and can do all the work,” Dirk said with a smile, “While I nap in a garage.”
“I hope so too,” said Radius.
Dirk left the house quietly. It was now after midnight. He wasn’t too worried about being heard. The houses were all so heavily insulated that little noise penetrated them. The low hum of the wind was barely perceptible, and everyone should be asleep – even the Sergeant.
A butterfly lifted of its charging pad atop City Hall for a routine patrol.
(31) Day 22 0015 The Caper
He sent Tom a “.” as a text, to let him know he was at the compressor by Cogeneration Unit 1. After a minute, (which seemed much longer) he was about to text Tom again when the door opened slowly.
“I was working on the access panel,” Tom said, screwdriver in hand. “Come on.”
Tom quickly led the way through the plant to the wall the main building shared with the storage addition.
“Whenever they build on additions they include penetrations through the shared walls for later installation of wires, piping, etc. If they are not used however, they secure the accesses with fire zone rated panels.”
“What are ‘fire zone panels’?” Dirk asked.
“Remember on the ship the signs on doors that said ‘Fire zone door, keep shut’?” Tom asked.
Dirk thought for a minute. “Yes, and in hotels back on Earth,” Dirk said.
“Exactly,” Tom responded. “In a lot of industrial facilities, and on ships and spaceships, fire zone doors shut automatically when smoke or fire is detected. The doors are held in the ‘open’ position by magnets, and when the fire or some is detected anywhere in the building, the magnets turn off, releasing the doors.”
“But why,” Dirk asked.
“Most fatalities from fires are not from the actual flames, but from the smoke. The fire zone doors are intended to stop the movement of smoke through the building or ship.”
“So the fire detectors also secure the ventilation systems, right?” Dirk asked.
“Yes,” said Tom, pleased that Dirk had grasped the principle. “So in a building or ship you never design an opening that cannot be closed off. Penetrations in walls, ceilings and floors must be sealed so that they do not allow vapor to travel from room to room. That way it remains possible to isolate the space in the event of a fire. Otherwise the smoke and other hot expanding gasses that constitute a fire can spread unhindered through a building. As a result, a fire in one room can spread death through the entire building even if the flames never leave the room where the fire started.”
“Now on Mars all industrial buildings are printed with penetrations leading to future potential buildings. If additions become necessary later, they can print more building, saving ink by using the sides of an existing structure and making it possible to route power or ventilation to the new space without putting a hole in the wall (which would be very difficult and mess up the cosmic ray shielding). However, if the penetration is not used, complete coverage is required to preserve the fire zone integrity.”
“This is good to know, but how does this help us help Radius?” Dirk asked, impatiently.
“Piping and electrical runs won’t help us here, but a fire zone cover will,” Tom said.
“Why?” asked Dirk.
“Whoever put that fence in didn’t do it to code. It is not an official alteration, or I would have to know about it. I suspect they are unaware of the other access to the space. The fence blocks access from the front of the room, but not from the wall it shares with this building…”
Dirk finally visualized what Tom meant. “There must be an access between this room and the storage locker, which they didn’t think about because it was covered with a fire zone panel!”
Tom smiled. “And I removed the panel on this side. After we remove the panel on the other side, which we can do because this is the original building, we are in!”
“Brilliant!” said Dirk.
&nbs
p; Tom led the way to the access panel he’d found, concealed behind the Number 1 Methane Storage Tank. It held the product of the melting methane crystals in the permafrost. The methane pipeline brought the methane to this first storage tank where it was held until needed. It then transited a series of filters and dehydrators to ensure sufficient purity to fuel the generators before it was transferred to the main power plant storage tanks. The tank, about ten meters tall, was the largest single item ever brought to Mars before the Elevator construction had begun. Tom climbed over the intake manifold and squeezed past a filter unit where he stopped and dropped to the ground. Dirk could see the first panel on the deck next to him, and Tom’s tool bag on the ground next to it. This explained the delay following his text letting Tom know he was outside the power plant door.
“Ok Dirk, get on the other side of me, reach in, and hold the panel while I detach it from the housing. The door on this side was bolted, but the other panel is simply dogged down like a water or airtight door. When I turn the last dog (those lever things holding the door on) it will fall if you are not holding it. I doubt anyone could hear it, but there is no sense in taking chances.”
“Roger,” said Dirk.
Tom pulled the last dog, and the panel dropped to the floor. Dirk, unprepared for the surprisingly heavy hatch, allowed it to land on the floor with a “clang”.
“Oh man, sorry,” said Dirk.
Tom’s expression showed he was displeased, but he said, “That’s ok. If you hadn’t been holding it the hatch would have made a lot more noise as it fell. You first, climb through.” Dirk lowered the hatch to the ground, carefully, and climbed in.
A row of parts lockers was in front of him, pushed up against another row of lockers so that they were back to back. He turned on his mini green LED flashlight and scanned the covers, looking for the leg. Tom crawled through.
“I’ll check the other side. What is the part number?” Tom asked.
“4337 DJ – H”
Tom began scanning the other side. Dirk finished his side and moved to the next row of lockers. The lockers were perpendicular to the fence, so from behind the fence, even though the locker doors were clear to facilitate part finding, one could not discern the locker contents.
“None of this makes sense,” Dirk thought to himself, before he was interrupted by a quiet shout from Tom – “I’ve found it!”
Dirk quickly walked over to Tom and read the number on the locker – 4337 DJ-H.
“Great.” Dirk activated his communicator to purchase the part and open the locker.
Tom reached out a hand and stopped him.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Tom asked. “You could be entering a world of hurt.”
“Yeah, Radius and I discussed it. We are charging it to Radius’ health plan, he’s a Company employee, and these are Company parts. I don’t know why they are locked up, but we need them to get Radius back on the job, and he has to get back on the job so we can get the elevator built. Right?”
Tom nodded. “I agree with you, but being right does not always keep people from getting in trouble.”
“Tom, I really appreciate your help, but officially, I did this on my own, so don’t worry.”
“Have you talked to your dad about it?”
“No, in part because of the concerns you raised. I think ‘plausible deniability’ will better serve him than wading into this mess,” said Dirk.
“Good thinking,” said Tom. “Go for it then.”
Dirk opened the locker, and unbeknownst to him, alerted the butterfly on patrol. It flew toward the Power Plant.
Dirk removed and performed a quick visual inspection on the leg. It seemed fine, but then so did the other ones - a cursory inspection of the exterior didn’t tell him much. He’d stashed the installation tools at his house where Radius was waiting, so he could check it out there.
“Let’s go,” said Tom. “No point in hanging around here. These are on a local server, so whoever put them here knows the locker opened.”
“Alright,” said Dirk. “Let me put it in my backpack.” He’d brought a hiking backpack with a hip belt, big enough to hold the complete leg. Bent at the knee, it fit such that he could close the top flap. It didn’t look normal, but it wasn’t obviously containing a leg either.
Dirk handed the backpack to Tom, who was already through the hatch and standing back in the Power Plant.
“Help me close the hatch and then you can take off,” Tom said.
Dirk held the hatch up while Tom dogged it down.
“I’ll stay here for a while, checking some readings. You should take the back exit. I’d not head directly home if I were you.”
“Yeah, good thinking,” said Dirk.
They walked to the back entrance, opened the first set of doors, closed them behind them to preserve the air barrier, and opened the exterior door a crack. Dirk peered out into the dual moonlit darkness. The two little moons made multiple shadows. He was pretty used to it now, but it did make the piping systems emerging from the Power Plant look especially eerie and beautiful. He’d always liked the abstract patterns of piping systems and power plants. Due to the Martian storms much of the Power Plant piping systems ran along the ground, covered with a protective printed housing. From the ship’s bridge they looked like Tibetan mandalas.
Dirk scanned for anything unusual, and stepped back into the vestibule. “Hey Tom, you see anything out of the ordinary?” Tom leaned out and peered at the landscape for a moment.
“I think I saw one of the butterfly drones fly by,” he said. “I can’t be sure in that light, but nothing else flies here.”
“Oh man, that isn’t good. I didn’t think they had any left.” Dirk was quiet for a minute.
“I bet that was what was in the diplo pouch we were picking up when Radius was hurt! I’m going to have to move quickly to avoid that thing.”
“Let me tighten up your backpack,” Tom said, adjusting some of the straps. “You don’t want to jangle or have this thing come undone while you are hauling across the Martian night.”
“Thanks, Tom.”
“Go.”
Dirk shot out the doorway, keeping to the shadows until he reached the main intake pipeline for the methane from the ‘mine’. He did a cat leap onto the upper part of the ladder and scrambled up. He paused by the Number 2 main isolation valve and looked around.
He saw the butterfly as it emerged silently from the north side of the Power Plant and immediately realized that on top of the pipeline was not a smart place to wait. He swung back down the ladder and crouched in the shadow of the pipe. This meant that he was not directly under the pipe, but slightly to the side. It wasn’t much of a shadow from a concealment perspective. The two moons, both much smaller than Earth’s, were closer and so provided a similar level of illumination as they were both nearly full. In addition, he soon realized, the drones must have full spectrum cameras, (including infrared) so the degree of illumination didn’t really matter. If it noticed him, he was caught.
“But it hasn’t noticed me yet,” Dirk said to himself. He crawled over to the closest stanchion supporting the pipeline and leaned against it. The drone was circling the Power Plant. “I wonder how long Tom will stay inside,” Dirk thought. He watched the drone for a few minuets, timing how long it took from when it disappeared around to the west side the building until it reappeared on the north east corner in his line of sight. Luckily it had chosen an altitude that put it below the level of the Power Plant’s clerestory windows. As a result, when it was on the west side it could not see to the east. “It must have received an indication of activity in the plant and is focused on capturing imagery of whoever is inside,” Dirk said to himself. “But it doesn’t know what caused the alert, so maybe I’ll get away undetected.”
“If the butterfly maintains this search pattern,” Dirk said to himself. “I’ll have 30 seconds in which to move. That should create enough distance between myself and the Po
wer Plant to provide some plausible deniability as to what I was doing running around in the middle of the night.”
When the butterfly next flew out of sight Dirk took off, sprinting carefully to the south of the pipeline. “Even with the backpack and Radius’ leg, without the heavy ‘suit’ I’m feeling light!” Dirk thought as he counted the seconds, sprinting along the pipeline. His goal, a booster pump assembly further upstream along the pipeline, would provide the necessary concealment during the butterfly’s next circuit.
“24, 25, hide” he said to himself as he settled down on the east side of the booster pump assembly. He wanted to look for the butterfly, to see if it had noticed him, but controlled himself and instead looked at his watch, timing the search orbit. At 1 minute on his chronograph he was sprinting again to the next booster pump assembly.
And that was as far as he reached undetected. He looked up and behind him as he slid into position behind the pump assembly and saw the butterfly calmly following. As he sat there panting the butterfly orbited about 10 feet off the ground, above the top of the main pipeline header.
Dirk sat there for a few minutes, dejected, catching his breath and rapidly getting cold, even in the sweatsuit. He hadn’t dressed for an extended stay in the middle of the night outdoors. He’d have to keep moving and get indoors soon.
He started walking, still heading out along the pipeline as he tried to figure out what to do. “On the bright side,” he thought, “Since the butterfly is with me Tom should be able to get home undetected.”
“I could say I was out for a run,” he thought as he broke into a jog to stay warm. “Or better, that I wanted to work on my parkour in the City, and can practice more effectively without concerning myself with avoiding crashes onto fellow citizens.”
“That could work,” he thought. “It’s the best I can think of now anyway.”
Decision made, he scrambled up onto the pipeline, and began running, leaping over the valve stems and vaulting over the flow monitoring stations. Resisting the impulse to look at the butterfly, he snuck looks only occasionally after a jump, when a pause after landing would seem less suspicious.
“The bug’s still on me,” he said to himself after reaching the Power Plant and landing a front flip to the ground.
“Ouch! Nailed the landing but Radius’ leg nailed me,” he said rubbing the back of his head where the leg had whacked him. Shaking it off, began mapping out a route to showcase his parkour skills.
“I’ll claim I was out for a workout because I couldn’t sleep, and wore the backpack to challenge my balance and grip strength with some extra weight” Dirk thought. Realizing he was almost at Tom’s house he tic tacked down between two houses to change direction and headed for the movie theater/assembly building. Muscle-uping onto the top of the front portico, he clambered onto the roof of the theater, the largest building in the City (not including the Power Plant or greenhouses) and stopped to enjoy the view. He had nothing more to lose – might as well give the butterfly a chance to get some good stills. “Maybe I can get a copy of the footage – I’d get millions of hits for that run back on Earth,” he thought, a wave of homesicknesses and missing his friends washing over him. He hadn’t really thought about his friends too much, intentionally. He’d talked to them a bit when he first arrived, and tried to participate in their usual online gaming activity, but the time lag was so big between Earth and Mars that he couldn’t really play with them. They were always 20 minutes ahead of everything he did.
“This would be awesome to show them though,” he thought. “We could talk about it like we used to do after a great Games session.”
His cooling sweat shook him out of his reverie. The butterfly was in orbit around him. “I guess I’ll go home now,” he said to himself, and started down. He dismounted from the portico with a regular jump (his head still a little sore from his previous flip) and walked home.
“Will the Sergeant banging on the door wake me up?” he wondered.
Radius awakened from sleep mode as Dirk walked in the door.
“Success?” he asked.
“Yeah,” said Dirk, “But a butterfly followed me home. Maybe you were right and this wasn’t such a good idea.” Dirk took off his backpack, checked the leg for damage (it seemed fine) and continued his thought. “But you need this leg, and I’m glad I acquired it for you. Ready for installation?”
“Yes,” said Radius.
“Is it ok if I take a shower first?” Dirk asked, as he wished he could go for a swim instead. “A few laps would clear my mind after that little adventure,” he thought.
“Sure said Radius. “No rush.”
“Thanks.”
After his shower Dirk installed the leg. It powered up and optested sat.
“That was easy,” said Dirk with a little laugh.
Radius walked around the house, continuing the optest. “Simple installation, but an unnecessarily complicated process. Thank you.”
“Your welcome. Now I need to rack out and sleep. I may have an unpleasantly busy day tomorrow.”
Radius nodded.
(32) Day 22 0730 The Sergeant’s Late Response
The Sergeant was unhappy and in trouble as a result of the AI. The AI (artificial intelligence) monitoring the surveillance system (or more accurately, that constituted the surveillance system) since there was no threat to human safety, failed to awaken him after detecting the break in. His unpleasant awakening by the Director’s indignant fury when she’d read the nightly summary provided more than sufficient motivation for him to change the AI alert settings to ensure he’d be made aware of any future activity.
Usually the summary said “NSTR” which meant “Nothing significant to report”. This morning, on the other hand, a three page summary of the alarm, resulting area survey and suspect chase made for exciting reading as the Sergeant rushed to the Director’s office. The video of Dirk, (it was obviously the delivery kid) was playing on the big screen, and stills taken from the video at one minute intervals ran around the edge of the summary page.
“What in the hell is this!” the Director screamed. “He broke into the ‘private’ storage. You assured me that wouldn’t happen!”
The Director had retained a limited set of functional spare parts, in case of actual need on her part, or by Company officials who might arrive with robots (and too high a rank and commensurate potential influence on her superiors) to risk giving broken parts. Faulty parts filled the normal storage facility, enabling her to sell the functional spares to lunar customers. Dirk had happened across a part with only a bad circuit board, but most of the stored spares were merely empty shells - the heavy components - the servos, hydraulic systems, joints, magnets, etc. had never traveled past the Lagrange Points.
The Sergeant shrugged. “A full investigation to determine how he did it is required. The fence is intact according to the initial indications.”
“What did he take?” snapped the Director.
“A robot leg. It must be for his work colleague. I hadn’t heard about any damage. Maybe it only happened yesterday. Come to think of it, when the kid delivered the drone the robot wasn’t with him as it usually is. I didn’t think much of it at the time, since the package was so light, but maybe the robot was already injured then.”
The Director glowered at him.
“Give me some options to regain control of this situation!” she demanded.
The Sergeant had engaged in preliminary brainstorming on response courses of action as he’d rushed over and so only had to think for a moment before explaining his idea to the Director.
“Make it so,” she said. “That will slow the little thief down.”
(33) Day 22 0900 Arrested
The narrow gap between crime, investigation, prosecution and punishment on Mars resulted in the Sergeant knocking on Dirk’s door at 0900. His dad appeared almost immediately afterwards, having received a text notifying him of his son’s imminent arrest.
??
?What’s going on!” he asked.
“Your son is being arrested and put on administrative trial today for various infractions. Since he is a minor, you may accompany him. However, since it is an administrative procedure no lawyers are permitted,” the Sergeant said.
Mr. K had many questions, but held his tongue when he saw Radius walking around. “I must discuss this with Dirk,” he thought, “But it is too risky to do with the Sergeant here.”
The Company had lawyers he could use, even though Sergeant had said they would not be allowed. However, legal help in the next few hours was beyond the Company’s capabilities. There was not even time for advice via a remote presence drone.
As Dirk pulled on his jacket the Sergeant said, “Let’s go, Dirk”.
Dirk walked out the door, with an intense look at his dad, trying to communicate everything that had happened overnight.
“Dirk looks tired,” his dad thought. “How did he get that leg?”
As Radius walked out the door, Mr. K reached out, pulling him back inside the doorway. The Sergeant and Dirk continued down the street, not looking back.
“Radius, what happened?” Mr. K asked anxiously.
“He acquired a new, functional leg for me. He linked it to my maintenance account, so it should be paid for properly, but I fear that the fact that the lockers were in a secured section of the facility has complicated the situation.”
“Why didn’t you guys fix the leg yesterday afternoon immediately upon returning? “ Mr. K asked.
“We tried two spares available in the parts lockers, and both were inadequate. That is when Dirk decided to try the parts in the secured section of the facility. I don’t know how he entered.”
Mr. K stood quietly in the doorway. “Ok, thanks Radius. If you don’t mind, I think it might be better that you not appear in the courtroom. If he is accused of stealing your leg, the leg present in the courtroom will not help his case.”
“Very well,” said Radius. “I’ll stay here.
“Thanks, Radius,” said Mr. K.
(34) Day 22 1030 Judicial Proceedings
“This is not a trial,” the Director said, contentedly ensconced on her dais and relishing the opportunity to exert her authority in front of an audience. The Sergeant brought in chairs from the other offices for potential spectators, and the proceedings streamed on the City network so anyone interested could watch. Dirk stood in the middle of the floor, the Sergeant on his left and his dad on his right.
“Dirk Kamehameha, front and center,” the Director said. Dirk approached the dais, where he had often delivered the protocol packages, and stood silently. The Sergeant motioned Mr. K to step over to the side of the room nearest the door. From his new position Mr. K was perpendicular to Dirk and could watch the expressions pass across his face as the proceedings unfolded.
“This is an administrative session to determine punishment for acts within the purview of the civil obedience statue of the Martian colony of which I am the primary Government representative. No rules of evidence apply, or are necessary in this case, and legal counsel is neither permitted nor required. There is no appeal to punishment meted out by this court.”
Dirk had never heard any of this before. As far as he knew there had not been any crime on Mars – sweat suddenly ran down the side of his face. “This does not sound good for me,” Dirk thought. Out of the corner of his eye he looked at his dad, viewing something on his tablet. “Is he checking the Martian code?” Dirk wondered.
“Although evidence is not required, I am a firm believer in transparency and honesty in government. Therefore, Sergeant, play the video evidence associated with the charges against the young Mr. Kamehameha.”
“Yes Ma’am,” said the Sergeant.
On the screen a video using only the ambient light (not the infrared option) of Dirk executing a tic-tac between two buildings appeared. The Sergeant froze the video and zoomed in on his face. His face, illuminated by a streetlight, while the rest of him remained in shadow stood out perfectly.
“Based on this evidence, you Dirk Kamehameha are charged with trespassing on the property of the community and disturbing the peace,” the Director proclaimed. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
Surprised that they hadn’t mentioned Radius’ leg or his trip along the pipeline Dirk stared back. The Director, interpreting his vacant stare and silence as a result of fear of her, smiled satisfactorily. He would remain quiet about the “other issues”.
“Your lack of a statement is noted,” she said. “I will now read the sentence.”
The Sergeant came to attention.
The Director began her pontification. “No longer are you permitted to move at will over Government property (“It is really Company and individual’s property” Dirk thought) like a tightrope walker. In order to tether you to the community and its norms you are hereby sentenced: you must wear, at all times you are outside your home, including while performing your duties at the Elevator Logistics Construction Station, weighted clothing sufficient to generate the equivalent of 40 Earth pounds, measured by load sensors placed in your shoes. This data is reviewable by the Sergeant with 24 hours notice. Compliance will also be verified through unannounced, in person inspections.”
Dirk, a smile sneaking onto his lips, looked over quickly at his dad. His dad maintained a stern expression, and shook his slightly to the left, as if saying ‘No!’ and made the hand sign he had used with him as a kid that meant ‘quiet’ (palm down, with a quick flex of the fingers). Dirk wiped the smile from his face.
He looked at the Director and realized she was waiting for him to say something, but he didn’t know what to say. “Thank you” didn’t seem right but…
“How am I supposed to gain the weight?” he asked.
“What?” asked the Director, annoyed.
“Um, if I have to increase my mass such that I wear the equivalent of 40 additional Earth pounds, how am I supposed to do that? Do I have to carry a brick or something?”
The Director smiled. “It is not the role of this administrative procedure to solve all of your problems for you. Why should we expend resources, Government resources mind you, to solve your particular challenge? Your failure to obey the rules of the community does not generate a claim on the community to make your life easier by providing you with compliance mechanisms.”
Dirk stood there in response, the ludicrousness of the situation, which had developed very quickly, outpacing his ability to process it. “Why didn’t they accuse me of stealing the leg?” he asked himself. “The trespassing charge doesn’t make any sense – none of it does.”
He looked over to his dad, but saw only the ‘quiet sign’ again in response. “Good advice, I guess,” Dirk thought.
The Director looked at the Sergeant. “Anything further Sergeant?” she asked.
“No ma’am,” he responded.
“Very well. Dirk, you have five working days to comply with the punishment. Report when you are ready for sensor installation to the Sergeant at his office. Dismissed!”
Dirk looked over at his dad, who motioned for him to follow. His dad walked out of the office, and kept going out of City Hall, not waiting for Dirk. Dirk followed at a normal pace, figuring his dad must have a reason for refusing to speak. He’d wait until he arrived home.
“I wonder if Tom watched?” Dirk thought. “I’m glad they didn’t mention him.”