Lucinda arose early to work on her presentation about Suresh, which was scheduled for first thing in the morning. She enjoyed breakfast with Savanna and the inane chatter from the cook-bot, who renamed himself Durgon Kushman. She fussed with her data and wording as she drank coffee, waiting for the rest of the crew to show up. At the appointed hour, she presented her report about Dr. Parambi in the mess hall.
“It has been over three weeks since his neuroablation, and he has been getting one low-dose medication,” Lucinda continued. “He has persistent thought and behavioral abnormalities.” The other four crew members were paying close attention. This was the fourth meeting dealing with Dr. Parambi in two weeks. All of the previous had ended in conflict. “We have had to terminate his activities on three occasions since our last meeting. Our bots are examining some additional work he has done because it is not clear yet what his intent is. It does not appear to work in line with our mission. He is getting better, if not psychiatrically, at hiding his activities.”
“Without the editorials, please, Lucinda,” Cyrus interrupted.
Lucinda continued without a pause. “On seven occasions, he has approached me, as you can see here,”—pointing at locator entries—“with vague or overt sexual references. On one of these interactions, he had a sample of his aphrodisiac, despite our efforts to prevent him from making more. Our testing indicates while his potential for violence is much less since the procedure, his anomalous thought processes have not been affected much.” Cyrus fidgeted and was about to interject. “Before you interrupt, I acknowledge his IQ precludes absolute comparisons with norms. However, in a thorough review of decades of data, it is reasonable to conclude his pattern is abnormal as demonstrated in this series of scattergrams we finished yesterday. Regardless of this comparison to the expected and typical, his behavior, according to objective analysis, is categorized as nonproductive and potentially harmful to the mission. It is the consensus of medics and med-bots that further action needs to be taken.”
“We have agreed on this opinion,” Maricia confirmed for the formal record.
“Since our last meeting,” Cyrus began, “Suresh has approached me daily with objections to the process, the uncertainty of the findings, the impact on the mission, and, mostly, the infringement on his rights. He filed a grievance with Houston and Paris about the abuse of his rights when we did the neuroablation without his permission. Hours ago, we learned that Command upheld my decision but not without significant dissent and with a great deal of exhortation, so to speak, to preserve his rights as much as possible. Just so all of you are aware, and for the record, one of his terminated activities was directed at me with harmful intent. We have restricted his access to most of the computer. Despite this, he was able to introduce programming into the system. I believe we isolated and deleted the routine. Raul placed additional protections into security.”
“Did you send the programming back to base?” Lucinda asked.
“Yes, but we have not received a response. As you know, each day, the time to get messages back and forth grows longer.”
“I had the computer look for programming changes by Parambi,” Raul commented. “It found nothing more than the one subroutine.
“Have you changed your position, Commander?” Lucinda questioned.
“No. I think he is still manageable with our current level of vigilance. Just to repeat, the two fatalities were unintentional, and the attack on Raul was done prior to the ablation. You said his potential for physical violence is low.”
“We said less, not low,” Lucinda corrected. “His potential for sabotage is high.”
“Manageable, as I said.”
There was an uncomfortable pause. “It is disturbing,” Lucinda challenged, “that you choose to ignore a strong recommendation by experts qualified to deal with psychiatric pathology.”
“That is my position.”
Savanna interrupted the two-way dialogue. “This is a replay of the meeting last weekend. Let me try a different tack. Does anyone here think that Dr. Parambi is a healthy and productive member of this crew?” No hands were raised, no voices in the affirmative. “That is a no. Does anyone believe that Dr. Parambi is a potential threat to individuals or the mission?”
There were hands raised and murmurs of affirmation. “Raise your hand if you think he is not a potential threat.” No hand was raised. “The point here, Cyrus, is that everyone, including you, views him as a threat. It creates a burden on the crew as well as robotic resources to keep an eye on him. We have had one failure that we know of in keeping him out of the computer. For all we know, there may have been others not detected. Your position is that we can be successful in containment. My point is that one mistake, one missed opportunity or observation could cost another life or the mission. I continue to be uncomfortable with this approach. I think it is irresponsible.”
“He has rights,” Cyrus argued.
“Lucinda has a right to be free from harassment. We all have a right to complete this mission, for which we have all sacrificed virtually everything. We have an obligation to do our work without also being prison guards or psych wardens. How many dead and wounded will it take, Cyrus? How many?”
“I doubt I could get approval from Control for another procedure. I don’t want to ask.”
“They are not here. They answer to the attorneys, the press, the bureaucracy, and, what, seven or eight governments. If this mission fails, they console each other, say they did their best, then go dissolve the dissonance of infamy and integrity in vodka. The consequence of failure for us is death. The consequence for the world is no exit from certain destruction. I no longer understand you, Cyrus.”
“I thought you were on my side, Savanna.”
“I am. You just haven’t realized it yet.”
“You are not helping me.”
“Cyrus, if you were flying on the wrong heading, would I be on your side if I told you nothing? I propose that we vote again.”
“Second that,” Lucinda added quickly.
“We tied last weekend, three to three,” Cyrus offered. “And I still maintain this is not an issue for democracy.”
“You claim to have the proxy for Parambi,” Raul argued. “The commander has two votes anyway for issues subject to democracy. The previous actual vote count was 3–2 in favor of more work on Parambi. You and I voted against it. By your count, it was 3–4 against. I have changed my mind. Let’s vote again.”
“It is not subject to a democratic process,” Cyrus insisted.
“I anticipated your objection, Cyrus,” Savanna said, “so I looked it up. The rules and regulations say Command decisions about the mission and operation of the vessel are not subject to vote. Issues dealing with internal affairs of the crew including disputes and rights are appropriately addressed through a democratic process with appeal, the commander having two votes. I think that a vote is in order.”
Cyrus stood up and paced around the room as everyone sat, waiting in silence. He stopped to read the rules and regulations displayed on screen. This went on for almost five minutes.
“Will it make it easier if we ask everyone to vote on whether this is subject to vote based on their understanding of the rules and regs?” Raul asked as the others murmured assent.
“I am going to lose in any case. But that makes it more defensible at Command.” Cyrus sat back down. “All who think the Parambi issue is subject to vote raise a hand.” Four hands went up. “This question passes in the affirmative. All who believe that additional measures to control Dr. Parambi should be taken, raise a hand.”
Four hands went up. “The measure passes 4–3 in the affirmative. Now, is everyone happy?”
“No,” replied Lucinda. “The language was too vague. We need to vote on subjecting Dr. Parambi to medical and surgical procedures against his will for the purpose of reducing his potential for harm against ship and crew.”
“That is too strong,” Cyrus objected.
“Otherwise,” Raul pointed out, “you might be able to block any procedures on him to which he did not consent. I, for one, am not interested in playing games with semantics or this political bullshit. We should vote on the language proposed by Lucinda.”
“Do you want to repeat that?” Cyrus asked.
Lucinda hit a button, and her voice sounded, a recording of what she had said. “All in favor of that?” she asked.
The same four hands went up. There was silence.
“Cyrus, you need to speak,” Savanna said. “It’s your voice that needs to be heard here.”
“The measure passes 4–3.” Cyrus spoke, stood and left the room.
“So, ladies,” asked Savanna, “how are you going to do this?”
Maricia and Lucinda looked at each other and said, almost in unison, “We have a plan.” Raul gently shook his head, grateful he was not the object of their stratagem.