Fleet Command cont'd
Although Karan posessed a predisposition toward mathematics and reason, her capacity for intuition was unimpaired. She woke the next morning to detect something different about her mother. A gaze which had previously been distracted was now focused firmly on her. Karan was slightly taken aback by the direct attention, but she understood what had happened the night before. She felt neither guilt nor satisfaction - she was too busy relishing in the new attention.
Karan and her mother were of the same mold: brilliant and warm, a rare combination among Kiith S'jet. Karan smiled as she recalled the old Kushan joke.
How many S'jet does it take to build a bookcase?
One hundred. One to supply the wood, one to put it together, and ninety-eight to argue over the color.
Although her mother was at a loss for how to spend the day, she was relieved - and a little dismayed - to realize her daughter was wholly self-sufficient. They ate breakfast and discussed Kushan history, took an early walk before the sun had scorched the ground, and per Karan's suggestion, they visited the local zoo in the afternoon. Karan's fragile hand stayed tucked in her mother's grasp the entire day.
Her mother could barely contain her astonishment at her daughter's intelligence. It broke through not just when discussing science, but when talking about Karan's friends, or her schoolwork. Karan was an articulate little girl, even by the high standards of the S'jet.
How much of her daughter's growth had she missed? How many days like today had disappeared into the sands of time, because she was too busy looking toward the stars to notice the love that was waiting for her at home?
Exhausted, the women entered their living quarters as the sun set outside. Long shadows lined the house, reminding them that the day was over and it was time to prepare a final meal before settling in.
Karan brought her homework into the kitchen while her mother fiddled with vegetables and fruits across the counter. Idly, her mother glanced at the assignment. It was a computer simulation - a challenging one, from the looks of it - to design a traffic control algorithm for a busy city. Were they really teaching lessons of such sophistication to children?
"Sure," said Karan, answering her mother. "Although they gave me an extra-hard challenge. Teacher says I'm up to it. The city isn't a grid - it's assymetric, see? There's no regularity to the layout."
The girl was right. Instead of an organized metropolis, the image on the tiny screen show an ugly, irregular map full of routes that went every which way. Dots indicating vehicles scurried across the map. Every so often, two dots would collide, leading to a larger red dot.
"Is that a collision?" her mother asked, dinner temporarily forgotten.
"Yes," Karan said. She frowned and stared at the screen, deep in concentration. "I'm supposed to design a system to avoid collisions. Teacher said no computer could solve this layout, but he wanted to see what I would do."
"I disagree," said her mother with a smile. "Computers can solve everything."
"Not this. Here." Karan pressed a few keys in the corner of the screen, and suddenly the simulation reset.
"What are you doing, honey?"
Karan was too absorbed with her assignment now to answer her mother. She watched the traffic patterns ebb and flow, her eyes flitting all around in a frenzy. Without warning, she flung one hand toward the screen, fingers flying across the city's image.
For a moment, her mother could not believe her eyes. Karan had eschewed computer control entirely. She was controlling the entire city, with its hundreds of intersections and cross-streets, using only her mind.
Karan kept this up for almost a minute, furiously toggling intersections to control traffic. Finally, just as she was beginning to perspire from the effort, a single red dot appeared in the middle of the screen. Despite the defeat, Karan smiled and pushed the screen to the side.
"See, Mom? Computers can't do it, but computers are no match for a S'jet!" Karan looked up, expecting pride in her mother's eyes. Instead, her smile was met with a familiar blank gaze. "Mom?"
Her mother continued to stare at the traffic assignment, the crease on her brow growing deeper and deeper. She could not believe what she was thinking...but she also could not deny it.
Two heavy knocks on the front door rocked Karan's mother out of her reverie. Suddenly off-balance, she ushered her daughter to the other room and went to fetch the door.
The tall, spectacled scientist who waited outside smiled warmly, but it was forced. "Dr. Sjet," he said. "May I come in?"
"Of course, Atan," said Karan's mother. "And we're not at the lab. You can call me Karan, if you like."
Atan shook his wirey head. "Very well. Is your daughter home?"
Younger Karan poked her head out into the living area. "Hello, Doctor."
"Hello, Little Karan. How old are you now? Eight?"
"Nine. I'm nine years old."
Atan turned back to the elder Karan S'jet. "How she has grown. You must be so proud of her."
"Forever and always, Atan. I will never accomplish anything greater than raising her. She is the love of my life." Though Dr. S'jet was not facing her daughter, she could feel her child glowing with pride.
Atan straightened at this. "Such a romantic gesture. However, I received your message, and you said you had something you needed to discuss? Something regarding your...workload."
Dr. S'jet bit her lip, and turned to her daughter. "Sweetheart, fetch your homework and go to bed."
The young girl rolled her eyes, but grabbed her impossible simulation and trotted off to her room.
As soon as the child's door was closed, Atan dropped all pretenses. "Karan, we must talk about your message. You are speaking of reduced duties at the lab in order to spend time with your daughter. Do you know what that means? We are trying to save our entire species - including your daughter, I should add! You are the best mind we have. We cannot finish designing the Mothership's core without you! We have made so little progress lately, and Kharak is running out of time. Another few generations and we will have to migrate farther north. A hundred years after that, we perish entirely. We cannot lose you!"
"We've been wrong," Doctor Karan S'jet said with a flat tone. "You're wrong. I'm wrong. We have all been wrong!"
Atan's eyes narrowed. "Dearest S'jet, usually you are so articulate, but your point escapes me. Did you not invite me over to negotiate a reduction of your responsibilities?"
At this the beautiful doctor waived her hand impatiently and changed the subject. "Atan, a computer core for our Mothership will never work. There are too many variables. Even our greatest supercomputer cannot monitor half a million Kushan in suspended animation. Besides, we are still identifying the need for subsystems which have not been designed! No computer can handle it all. It is a problem without a solution, that grows ever larger by the day. At this rate, in a year's time, the scope of this project will escape us entirely, and our children's children will perish on Kharak, along with our entire history."
Such a diatribe had never before met Atan's ears. "So...you don't want to discuss a demotion?"
"Atan, listen," said the elder Karen S'jet through excited breaths. "I know how we can finish the Mothership. I know how we can complete the Core."
~~~
"Hyperspace module fully charged," came Karen S'jet's voice over the fleet's communication channels. It was indescribable how she knew this fact, but she just...knew. One of the myriad cables that left her shaved her, traveled through the tank that suspended her naked body, and continued out into the veins of the Mothership, had told her that the hyperspace module was fully charged, and suddenly, she knew.
Karan S'jet was no longer human. Her humanity had been sacrificed in order to save her people. Now, she was about to embark on the journey of a lifetime, resigned to pave the path toward salvation as something not entirely alive.
"I am ready to initiate quantum wave generation on your mark," she said.
An imaginary finger was extended, and after a near-instantaneous check of all the other subsystems, including the cryo trays aboard the ship, she prepared herself - no, the Mothership - for its first hyperdimensional jump.
As the various subsystems revved and hummed, a small part of Karan's mind flickered to life. It was not plugged in to the Mothership, and it was unambiguously human. It thought of her daughter, and the way she had held her sobbing child to her warm body years ago. That beautiful face held fast in a part of her consciousness, even as the rest was overtaken by a flood of technical data. This part of her, she knew, would never fade completely.
Her daughter was not among the Kushan aboard the Mothership. Instead, her namesake was frozen aboard a cryo tray that hung in orbit just above Kharak. They would test the Mothership's hyperdrive, meeting the Khar-Selim vessel ten million kilometers away, then warp back to collect the rest of their precious cargo.
For an instant, the lights of the Mothership dimmed with doubt as Karan wondered whether this was the right path for her and her daughter. The image of the tiny child S'jet, in her eternal innocence, hung before Karan's dull eyes a moment longer. Then, the Mothership's massive hyperdrive whirred to life.
Computers are no match for a S'jet.
"Good luck, everyone."