SHAREEN FITZKELLUM
Kotto Okiah’s Big Ring out among the broiling nebula gases was nearly complete at last. Excitement built steadily among the construction workers. They all expected great things.
But Shareen and Howard continued to work on the small projects Kotto left for them. Shareen knew it was a great honor to serve under one of the greatest inventors of the past century, even just “everyday” inventions, but the giant project out in the nebula called to her. She wanted to be a part of that!
The bright spot was working beside Howard. She liked brainstorming with him, picking up on his ideas and racing to bring them to their logical conclusions. She had grown close to Howard as they tackled insurmountable problems, knowing there had to be a solution or Kotto would never have challenged them. And, sure enough, as they put their heads together, they sometimes reached simultaneous solutions so that they both laughed with delight. Once, she even gave him a brief hug, before breaking away in embarrassment. The second time, though, Shareen stopped being embarrassed.
Kotto entered the lab module, his curly hair tousled, his eyes wide and distracted, but he was grinning. “I finally got a chance to look at the designs you submitted yesterday. I’m pleased with everything you’re learning. I can see I’ve taught you well.” He let out an awkward chuckle. “Or, more accurately, you taught yourselves.”
“Based on your ideas,” Shareen said. “You helped us find the Guiding Star.”
“We wanted to show you what we could do, sir,” Howard said. “You are our mentor, and we decided to demonstrate our skills.”
Kotto seemed very pleased. “Your solution to that filter-flow process was genius. You took the problem and the attendant difficulties, approached it from a different direction, and found a mathematical connection that I wouldn’t have guessed.”
“We were curious as to how you solved it originally, sir,” Howard said. “Shareen and I tried six alternatives, and that was the only one that worked.”
Kotto looked away. “I, um … to be honest, I’ve been working on that for some time now. I wasn’t sure it could be solved.”
Shareen couldn’t believe it. “But, you’re … Kotto Okiah.”
“It wasn’t a high priority,” he said quickly. “I would have gotten around to it, but I thank you for saving me the work, so I could devote my mental energies to larger challenges. That’s what assistants are for—and you two have done very well.”
Shareen added, “The filter-flow process is ready for a prototype, and we could take it directly to market. You said if we made a working prototype—”
“Yes, yes I did—I will share the credit with you, if it works—and judging by your previous activities, how could it not work? A new filter-flow process!” He waffled, then said, “I’m so glad you solved it.”
Shareen was shocked to see tears welling up in Kotto’s brown eyes. Embarrassed, he turned away and hurried to the hatch of the lab chamber. “Sorry, I have a lot of work to do with the Big Ring. Keep up the good work.”
Shareen watched him go. Working here at Fireheart Station, she realized she had grown smarter and more intuitive. She and Howard had figured out many solutions she would never have considered before. Howard vetted her wildly original ideas, and they presented the best ones to Kotto.
She went to the broad windowport and stared wistfully out at the gigantic torus under construction. Only a few more weeks, and the ring would be completed, the ends connected, all the power blocks activated to create an inward-curling magnetic field with a flux density greater than anything previously measured—or so Kotto thought.
“I wish we could be out there,” she said. “Those other projects feel like tiny appetizers, and I want the main course, Howard. A big feast. We’ll have time enough to solve smaller problems, but we both know what we’ve been waiting for.”
Howard glanced over at the two research compies, saw they were busy calibrating a piece of crystal-fractionation equipment, and lowered his voice. “That’s why I went out of my way to acquire the plans for the Big Ring. We can look at them together.”
Shareen was so delighted she used the excuse to give him another hug. “Kotto didn’t exactly give us another assignment, so we have to occupy ourselves somehow.”
“Right.” He gave her a sly smile and called up the records, blueprints, and design specifications for the enormous ring under construction. They didn’t speak the name of the project aloud because the compies might tattle on them, but they immersed themselves in the intricacies of the Big Ring.
The electronic blueprints were incredibly detailed, but separated into dozens of independent sets for each construction team. Everyone needed to know their specific responsibilities, but no one, it seemed, was aware of the entire picture. No one but Kotto.
And now, Howard and Shareen were.
When they first arrived at Fireheart Station, these plans would have been incomprehensible to them, but since they had spent so much time sorting, arranging, and deciphering Kotto’s cryptic notes, coded labels, and shorthand notations, they could absorb the vast design.
Shareen and Howard spent hours together pointing out connections, discussing the choices that Kotto had made, while trying to fathom parts of the Big Ring that seemed superfluous or, at the very least, needlessly cumbersome. She and Howard followed the thought processes of the great scientist’s masterpiece, but after a while Shareen began to grow unsettled. She talked less.
They fell silent as they pored over the design, tracing circuit paths with their fingertips. Howard borrowed Shareen’s pad, reran calculations, and returned to the blueprint. She had noticed the same thing and proofed the calculations a third time. Her own results matched Howard’s, and neither of theirs reproduced what Kotto proposed. The two tried again and again to follow what he had been thinking, sure they must be missing something.
Finally, Shareen said what was on both of their minds. “I don’t think it’ll work—at least not the way Kotto expects.”
Howard was more reluctant to say that aloud. “But we’re just his apprentices. It isn’t our place. We weren’t even supposed to be reviewing the designs at all.”
Shareen knew that, and now she realized why Kotto was so reluctant to show the full plans to anyone. Perhaps he had grave doubts as well.