Kaley and I locked eyes.
“Holy crap,” she said.
“I agree. The failures are happening faster—and to a lot of our stuff.”
“They’re isolated.”
I shook my head. “Not really. We can fire up the single-ended portal and dial them up We know the E-Two coordinates very well.”
“Scotty, I gotta run out there. I know, our baby is due soon, but I think I can go out, look around and come up with something.”
I stared. “There is no way in hell that I am letting you go out to E-Two with the situation our there so iffy, and you within days of labor.”
“You shouldn’t swear at your poor, sweet, delicate pregnant wife.”
I admit it, I laughed. “You? Delicate? It is to laugh. But no, you can’t go. I won’t let you.”
“You won’t let me?” That little frown crease between her eyes signaled that I had made a tactical error. Any traces of good humor vanished.
Like any intelligent husband, I retreated as gracefully as possible. “You are a free agent, light of my life. I can’t tie you down in this room, though I would be tempted. However, I strongly recommend that you remain on good old terra firma until the blessed event that we are anticipating comes to fruition.”
Kaley made a grumbling sound that sounded like a combination of profanity and frustration, slightly muffled by forgiveness for my strategic retreat.
“Scotty, I don’t want to fight about it, but I really think I need to take a quick trip to E-Two. Quick. I mean it. Quick.”
I scroaned—a sort of scream and groan that gave some feedback on my attitude. “Please, Kaley. Please, please, please. You going out there has to be the last, the very last, resort. First, let’s call IC headquarters and see what their techs have to say. By now, for sure they will have examined more of the returned parts and subsystems. Maybe they already have a handle on the problem.”
“If they did, you know they’d have notified us.”
“Maybe. Or maybe not. Let me call.”
Kaley huffed again. “Okay.”
I picked up my personal and went directly to Overton’s office. His aide got him in seconds, and within three minutes I was talking to Chief Petty Office Waymond Withers, the senior repair tech and supervisor of SSS equipment repair in the main IC hangar complex. He sounded harassed but refreshingly eager to discuss the situation.
“Good to speak with you, Admiral,” he told me. “We got a weird situation in repair, and I needed some ideas from you. I was about to ask for permission to call Triple-S,”
Which put me off a bit, as I was calling to get ideas from him. I countered, “What’s the problem, Chief?”
Pause. As though collecting his thoughts. “It’s weird, sir. We’ve found the same odd problems as we do diagnostic probes to more and more of the equipment returned from E-Two. Partially melted insulation on wires. In many cases, it’s as though the epoxy bonding material is melting on some of the printed circuit boards, although the fiberglass isn’t damaged.”
“Admiral Overton had mentioned this to us. You’re saying that insulation and printed circuit board epoxy literally appears to be melting?”
“More than melting, sir. It’s as though the material is boiling off or sublimating. It’s not just melted; a lot of the material is simply gone. In addition, the remaining material is, I don’t know how to say it, sort of sticky.”
“Sticky.” I simply repeated his word, as I didn’t know anything else to say.
“Yes, sir, sort of like the consistency of the material has been altered. It’s as though the material has gotten way, way overheated. “it’s like, somehow or other, the input voltage to our power supplies is too high, and maybe the equipment is heating up too much. Problem is, we’ve checked the power outlets on E-Two and the power units—those that are still working—are dead-on in terms of output voltage. We also ran a few units at much higher input power. Most survived with no problems, and if there was one, it was a component failure. Absolutely no problems with insulation or PC board deterioration. It’s weird.”
“What about other electronics that have been returned? That is, parts from other than Triple-S systems that have failed. Do you repair those as well at your facility?”
“Yes, sir. Our depot handles all electrical and electronic repair. It’s a different department that handles other equipment, but we’re all side by side. We’re seeing the identical problems in all the equipment.”
I’d put the conversation on hands-free, so Kaley was following. I offered her the microphone. “Anything you want to ask?”
She shook her head. To Withers, I said, “Chief, our best tech specialist, Ms. Sellers, is working on the problem. We’ll get back to you.” We terminated and I turned back to her.
Kaley’s face was an odd mixture of irritation and expectancy. “Dammit, Scotty, I got something circulating around in the back of my mind, but it won’t surface. I gotta get out there.”
I countered. “Why not have Chief Withers bring over some damaged subsystems and you can examine them to your satisfaction. We can have them bring over any diagnostic equipment you need.”
She made a grinding-her-teeth sound. “I need to be on site, Scotty. You know how I work. I get there, I smell the air, I stretch out my Spidey senses, and I begin to put things together. Somehow, I’m confident that if I spend a couple hours there, everything will fall into place.”
“Let me call Bobby next.”
I had no idea where Bobby might be, but I suspected Ganymede. With a little help from IC, I had him on the line in about ten minutes.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Not a lot so far. We fired up the single-ended portal generator and set up the far end on E2. I’ve sent through a steady stream of parts to fix the portals on the E-Two end, but no soap. I think the portal power units are damaged, and you know what a mess that can be. So far, neither portal is fixed, despite sending about a dozen extra personnel through. You know as well as I do that rebuilding the high power portion of the portal circuitry is a major undertaking. Frankly, I hate to send more parts through until we can figure out what’s going on. I haven’t heard from the repair depot at IC headquarters.”
Since I had, I brought Bobby up to date on the bad news. He muttered to himself, then, “Kaley got any ideas?”
“She thinks her subconscious is getting close, but nothing yet. She wants to come out there.”
“Hey, that’s a good idea. If she were to hustle out here for a quick meeting, she could get a good look and then be back to your home in a couple-three hours.”
“Are you kidding?” I almost screamed. Okay, I screamed. “She’s within days of the birth of our child! I don’t want her out of this house until she goes to the hospital!”
“No, I’m not kidding, and quiet down. It’s just the birth of a baby, Scotty. A good number of millions happen every month on Earth—nearly half a million a day. I mean, geez, getting from our lab to Ganymede to E-Two, it’s like a short walk, maybe the equivalent of a couple blocks.”
I almost said some very rude words to my best friend. “Thanks a lot, you Quisling, you Benedict Arnold. I’m trying to get her to take it easy, not risk her life.”
Kaley took over before I said something that really might hurt Bobby’s feelings. “Excuse his bad manners, Bobby. He’s just in overprotective husband mode. Are you on-site on E-Two now?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry, Kaley. Not trying to piss anyone off—just want to get this problem fixed ASAP.”
She consulted the time window on my personal. “I’ll be there in less than two hours.” And terminated the call before I could stop her.
I swung around to face her, angry and about to continue my rude behavior. She stopped me effortlessly by simply putting her hand over my mouth. “Listen up, you. You know I love you incredibly, and I am equally sure you adore me—sometimes more than I think I deserve. I have no wish to fight with you, so just listen. Solving impossible problems in the field is what I do. Bobby’s a genius in his own way, and you’re an incredible technical talent and engineering manager. But field service is my superpower and by God, I can’t do it from a rocking chair in the den. Not that I have a rocking chair, but you get the point.”
She took my face in her hands, standing as close as her extended belly would allow. “Now just stand aside, and let me do what I do best. I have a hunch, but I gotta be there to be sure, and the hunch has to continue to crystallize, so let me dress, and I’ll be on my way.”
Goddamit, I thought but didn’t say. I could fight and argue with her in many different venues and situations, but I couldn’t very well contend with Logical Kaley. Short of lassoing her and tying her to a chair in the den, there was nothing else I could do.
We stared at each other in silence, and the quiet only reinforced the feelings of love—and let’s face it, adoration—that surged through me. This woman, calm, powerful, lucid, dependable, and determined, demonstrated all the reasons I had come to admire and ultimately love her. I couldn’t argue anymore because, despite her condition, however fragile it might or might not be, I knew she was right. If she went to E-Two, she would confront and solve the equipment problems that plagued us now for weeks.
“I’m coming with you,” I said very distinctly.
“Of course.” She left the room to get into her work clothes, and I, silently giving up, went to put on my uniform.