An astronomer in Chile called and double-checked with the LASAR
monitoring station in Suriname, and they had it on the LASAR screen too. After receiving a conference call with Suriname
and Chile, the STC traffic control monitoring station in Houston called it at
2:10 AM on Saturday, January 20th, 2044. "It's back! The Waste-REL is back!"
The next hour was a blur of waking everybody up.
The SPECTACL buzzed loudly in Edgley's darkened hotel room. Eyes shut, Edgley flinched and flailed at the
bedside table. The walls of the hotel
were thin and poorly insulated and someone in the next room yelled to
"shut off that noise!"
"Cheap twenty-five thousand dollar a night piece of crap,"
snarled Edgley as the SPECTACL buzzed again.
"Answer," croaked Mrs. Edgley, who had a much better grasp
of technology than Edgley ever would.
The display on Edgley SPECTACL brightened and the LASAR monitoring
technician was on the line. Now Edgley could
see it in the dark.
"It's back," he said right away, smiling and making little
excited jumps that forced the camera in his desklink to work hard trying to
find his face. "Boss, the Waste-REL
is back on LASAR!"
"WHAT!" yelled Edgley, sitting up and stubbing his toe on
the bedside table. Some one yelled
"shut up" next door.
"The Waste-REL is coming back," said the technician. "We're looking at less than 12 hours to
reentry into the atmosphere."
"Can't we slow it down, keep it in orbit?" said Edgley,
donning his SPECTACL. Then he remembered
himself -- "Will it burn up on reentry?" he asked in a hopeful
whisper.
"We don't know, we haven't calculated that yet," said the
technician. "I'll call you
back."
Edgley sat on the side of his bed, looking at the
icons floating in his SPECTACL field.
All he could think was: "of all the cursed luck". If things kept up like this, he was going to
have this job for life.
Portia had been thinking the whole time she was helping Mickey repair
plumbing on the Waste-REL. She needed
some advice, and she knew whom to ask.
She didn't think she'd have consulted this particular individual if she
hadn't just been through the fuzzynavel.
"I know who to contact for advice on the whole killing the
Boomers problem," said Portia.
"I think that STC can hear everything we say, Portia," said
Jules. "There are cameras and
microphones all over the ship sending data that I don't control. In fact, Mickey, how'd you like to become a
communications technician?"
"Sure," said Mickey, heading for the FullSenz plug in.
"I am a communications
technician," said Ayame. "That
was my first mission assignment."
"Well, why don't we re-rig the patch cables for the
communications array?" said Jules.
"Sure," said Ayame.
"I'm game." And off she
went.
"Mickey," said Portia.
"I'm going to see if I can contact an old friend. I want to talk to her about what the
Visitor's satellite has asked us to do."
"Anything has to be better than the alternative," said
Mickey, not elaborating, looking to his friend Lyle. Lyle smiled faintly.
"Jules," said Portia.
"I have someone I want you to contact, but it's a very odd
request."
"Hey, odd requests are my specialty,"
smiled Jules.
The news intern was awoken by her SPECTACL. It was a call from her office desklink, which
had been programmed to monitor the raw conversation data from the Waste-REL and
transcribe it to text. When the
Waste-REL had disappeared, the intern didn't think to turn off the program and
now she was glad she hadn't.
The surveillance/transcription software was designed by the security
establishment to listen in on email, telephone calls and other electronic
communiqués and flag word-combinations that might represent a terrorist
conversation. This software, like
everything else manufactured for the defense industry, was made available
commercially as soon as it was viable and it was very popular with employers,
school/warehouses and in playrooms because it could flag intentions before
events occurred by listening for specified noun/verb combinations.
In this case, the surveillance software had flagged the verb
"kill". "Kill" was a
default word and always popped up an alert unless combined with words like
"switch" or "ump".
This was unfortunate because there had been a rash of umpire murders in
the baseball season of 2039.
But, the point is, the news intern's desklink had heard and
transcribed the word "kill" and it was programmed to wake her up if
it popped an alert.
The news intern wiped sleep from her eyes and was startled by the news
that the Waste-REL was back. Then she
read selected conversation links from the Waste-REL voice transmission:
Quote One: "We have to think about what we're going to do about
having to kill the Boomers."
Quote Two: "The straps in this chair are killing my nuts"
Quote Three: "No more television.
It'll kill us."
Quote Four: "I know who to call for advice on the whole killing
the Boomers problem."
"Playback from 10 minutes before quote number one," said the
very confused Intern, searching for context.
Then she listened from that point forward.
She was fascinated and then ecstatic - she had a scoop - the crew of
the Waste-REL had all gotten married
-- to each other!
Half way through the playback the desklink messaged back that all
transmissions from the Waste-REL were cut off.
"Are they still there?" asked the Intern but the desklink
didn't answer. "End call. Go to WNS now."
The WNS headlines-in-a-hurry page confirmed it -- the Waste-REL was
still there.
"Call my editor," said the news intern.
"His SPECTACL is rejecting all calls," said the intern's
SPECTACL.
"Emergency override -- we've got a scoop!"
'Scoop' was definitely the password to override the editor's
accept-no-calls command.
Next: The Spiritual Advisor
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