Hellburner

Took a moment for the senator to Figure what that meant. Then an angry frown. “So you’re blaming an AI breakdown?”

“No, sir. Everything from the AI’s viewpoint was coming optimal. A human with a clear head couldn’t have outraced the AI in targeting calculations or in bringing the ship stable enough to get a window. A human might have skipped the math and discharged the chaff gun and the missiles in hope of destroying the object by sheer blind luck, but the AI had an absolute interdiction against certain vectors. It didn’t even consider that it could violate that— that range safety could have taken care of the problem if it arose. Somebody decided that option shouldn’t be in its memory, and this being a densely populated system maybe it shouldn’t have been. But that ship was effectively lost from the moment the pilot reacted to his crew’s apprehension. That communications problem was the direct cause of the accident—“

Bonner said, “Excuse me, senator. The lieutenant is speculating, now, far outside his expertise. May I remind him to confine himself to what he was in a position to witness or to obtain from records?”

He didn’t look at Bonner. “A communications problem set up by a last-minute substitution of pilots.”

The committee hadn’t heard mat. No. Not all of them had, at least. And from Shepherds he knew were back there in the room, there was not a breath, not an outcry, just a general muttering, and he couldn’t turn his head to see expressions.

The senator said: “What substitution, lieutenant?”

“The crew trained as a team. The Fleet pilot was replaced at the last moment by a UDC backup pilot the colonel lifted out of his own crew and subbed in on Fleet personnel. The Fleet captain in command objected in an immediate memo to Col. Tanzer’s office—“

Bonner said, “Lieutenant, you’re out of line. Confine yourself to factual answers.”

“Sir. That is a fact upheld by ECS8 log records,”

Somebody yelled from the back, “Do they show the Fleet laid those targets and set that random ordnance interval?” Several voices seconded, and somebody else yelled, “You’re full of it, Jennings, you don’t break an ops team! You never sub personnel! Tanzer killed those guys sure as a shot to the head!”

The gavel came down.

Somebody shouted, over the banging, “The Fleet set up the course. Check the records! The Fleet had orders to set the targets closer together to screw the test!”

And from nearer the front, as the MP’s and Fleet Security moved in, “Wilhelmsen screwed the test—those targets were all right! He lost it, that’s all!”

Bonner was on his feet shouting, “Clear the room. Clear the room. Sergeant!”

Institution green. Ben had seen green. Had eaten real lettuce, drunk lime (orange juice was better) and had real margaritas the way they could make them on Sol One, but he still wasn’t sure why inner system liked that color that mimicked old Trinidad’s shower paneling, whether that shade was what Earth really favored. He sincerely hoped not. He honestly hoped not. But if Earth was that color wall to wall he’d take it over B Dock hospital corridors and vending machine suppers.

Dekker was still hyperbolic—swung on an intern, threatened the nurses, called the CO a psychopathic control junkie—

“How many fingers?” the intern had asked, holding up two, and Dekker had held up his own, singular—which was Dekker, all right, but it hadn’t won him points. The intern had checked his pulse, said it was elevated—

Damned right it was elevated. “You’re being a fool,” Ben said, while they were waiting for the orderly with the trank. He grabbed Dekker by the arm and shook him, but Dekker wasn’t resisting. “You know that, Dek-boy? Use your head. Shit, get us out of this place!”

“Sorry,” Dekker said listlessly, “sorry.” And stared off into space until Ben shook him again and said, “You want to spend your life in here? You want a permanent home here?”

Dekker looked at him. But the orderly came in and gave him the shot. Dekker didn’t fight it. And after the orderly went away Dekker just lay there and stared past him.

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