“Just hold it,” Dekker said into the rising mutter from Mitch’s crew and Almarshad’s. “We don’t need this.”
“We don’t need any damn tape,” Mitch said, “and we damn sure don’t need any tape off any women. Reactions aren’t there. You’re never going to see a female pilot on this ship, Kady, you don’t see ‘em in the carriers, you don’t see ‘em in the riders, and you’re never going to. You’ll crack under fire, you’re going to screw this whole damned program, on a rep you didn’t earn.”
Meg said, with a riffle of cards, “Cher, you got a truly basic misconception, there. Ship’s aren’t shes, they’re hes— you got to make love to them the right way, got to keep ‘em collected so you both get there…”
Laugh from some of the guys, thank God. Wasn’t funny at the table. Mitch was pissed. Mitch was being a son of a bloody bitch, was what he was being, hurt feelings, and a mouth that made you want to knock him sideways.
But Mitch gathered up the cards Meg dealt. “You’re in over your head, Kady.”
“Cher, I had a shuttle go dead once, lost a motor on lift, landed in the Seychelles, and that was a bitch. I haven’t sweated since.”
“Bullshit.”
“Yeah. Tell me yours.”
Mitch glowered a moment, then laid down a card and said, “Well-divers are fools.”
“You got that,” Meg said. “I resigned it.”
“Didn’t resign it,” Sal said. “They threw you out.”
“Huh. I was getting tired of it. Too much same stuff. You seen Luna once, you’ve seen it. Big damn rock.”
“Smug bitch,” Mitch said, in better humor. Dekker eased back and found himself shaking, he was so wound up. But Meg wasn’t. Cold as ice, or she hadn’t any nerves between her hands and her head. Couldn’t tell she might want to knife Mitch Mitchell—
But he’d lay odds Mitch knew.
“Damn, damn. You got a rhythm in this thing.”
See those programs, see how that infodump selected for the human operator, and how it prioritized—that, that was a serious question. They’d had a problem like mat in TI, putting a human into the supercomputer neural-net, without letting it take over infoselection. This one sampled the human needs as well as the environment and it wasn’t doing all it could. The data behind it was fiatline. He pushed it, and it gave him the same input.
“You’re not supposed to critique it, Pollard. Just stick to the manuals.”
“Screw the—begging your pardon. But I worked on something like this. Staatentek program or independent?”
“Classified.”
He bit his lip. Didn’t raise the question of his clearance.
“Just a minute, Pollard.”
Just a minute was all right. He sat and stared at the screen that offered such interesting prospects: infodrop for the human decision and infocompression for the computer. Reality sampling against a chaos screen in a system Morrie Bird’s prize numbers man found achingly familiar, after a stint in TI’s securitized halls….
Screw supply systems modeling, this thing talked to him with a familiar voice.
This isn’t sim software, he thought. Main program’s elegant. This is real, isn’t it? Ignore the cheesy recorded randoms, son of a bitch—the system under this is a piece of work—
He said, to the air, “Staatentek didn’t do this, did they?”
No answer for a minute. Then a different voice; “Pollard. Leave the programs alone.”
“You can feel the randoms. I didn’t have to look for them.”
A pause. “That’s very good, Pollard. What would you suggest we do about it?”
Obvious answer. To the obvious question. The Belt. The numbers. The charts. The feeling you got for the system— the way the rocks moved. Real rocks, with the Well perturbing what the Sun ruled….
… Shakespeare; and Bird…
Ben, leave the damn charts—
“Pollard? What would you do?”
“I’m sure you have,” he said. “Use Sol.”
“Or Pell. Or Viking. You haven’t met Tripoint, Pollard. Would you like to see Tripoint? That one’s an excellent example….”
Balls hit and rebounded on the table. Ben walked around the other end, considering his next shot, gave a twitch of his shoulders, estimated an angle, and took careful aim with the cue.