I say that his procedure sounds fine. After a few minutes more I hear my questions, almost fifteen minutes after I asked them. He's looking at the screen and then his book. He has long hair, is that the fashion in China? He nods, "Turn to page, ah, twenty-six," he says. So I'll have a chance to get about four exchanges in an hour of tutorial. Well, maybe I can prep my classes ahead of time and be able to shoot him a whole stack of questions.
He explains sensitivity patterns, a lot of which I already know, then he makes up a problem and solves it step-by-step. I ask him to download any supplementary material he thinks would be helpful.
"Okay," he says, "Next session, give me a list of the references you have available, I mean, things like Qia's, ah," he pauses a moment, translating the title from Chinese to English I guess, "Reference Guide to, ah, System Types."
The session ends.
I shut the screen off, feeling more than a little unsatisfied with the whole arrangement. The Ridge is paying good credit for me to take an hour of carrier time. It's not like the class, that's a squirt, takes no time at all to receive the whole thing. I know there's a lot of space in the signal, that other things come in with it and get separated, but it doesn't seem worth what it costs.
Taking the class doesn't seem worth what it costs, even if the actual class doesn't cost anything. It's all theory. It's not practical. I don't so how it's going to help me with the Ridge's main problem. All of our system is over-extended, everything adapted to do more than it was designed to do, and we don't really have much back-up. It's a raw material problem, we just don't have enough hardware.
Theresa comes in and drops her bookbag on the floor in the living room. Martine dishes up dinner and asks me about my tutorial. I talk and watch her move around the kitchen. She is a tall woman, taller than I am by a finger's width, big-boned. Not pretty. She was an officer in the Army and that still shows in the way she holds herself. I review what I have done today, cleaned after the goats this morning and run the waste separator and distiller and spent the afternoon figuring out abstractions of systems engineering. Martine has worked all day, I know. And I have so much to do. I should be out in back, checking the garden, and she mentioned the CO2 levels are off.
She clears the table. "The two of you can do your homework together," she says to Theresa and I.
"Have you got homework?" Theresa asks.
"A lot," I say.
Theresa giggles.
First thing Thursday morning, I check the CO2 levels in the new yard. Eskimo, one of the old billies, plants his feet wide and shakes his head at me in challenge but the nannies all crowd around me. Theresa sometimes brings handouts and they've all become beggars. She's already fed them, that's her before school chore. I break the litmus pack and stick the indicator on the wall, then I shovel goat manure for waste separation. Martine wants the goat yards as clean as the house, which I suppose is a good idea, but the goats aren't very cooperative.
The CO2 levels are higher than usual. Not life threatening to man or goat by any means, but unusual. I go back to the old goat yard and crack the second pack and stick the indicator on the wall. Lilith follows me around. She's one of the pregnant nannies. She's also my favorite, she's affectionate. I think Martine holds this against her, she said once that Lilith was easy. Nobody could ever accuse Martine of being easy. I pet Lilith, and shoo her out of my way and clean up.
The CO2 levels in the old goat yard are high, too.
I put a sticker in the garden, oddly enough, O2 levels are abnormally high. Of course, the plants are oxygenators but the system takes advantage of that. When Martine said there were problems in the new yard I suspected a leak, even a tiny leak can through a regulator off. But in both goat yards and the garden?
The regulators are simple, like thermostats, really and it seems an unreasonable coincidence that all three would go out at once. Which suggests that there's a problem with our controller. I put a sticker in the kitchen.
"What's that for?" Martine asks.
"All three of the yards are off," I say.
"Is it the programming?" she asks.
"The programming was fine until now," I say, keeping my voice normal. I did the programming to extend the system when we installed the yard. I handle the technical things, it's my half. Martine talks to the goats.
Martine looks at me, clear eyed, direct. "Well, is it the system?" she asks.
"I don't know," I say. "I don't know what it is." If it's the system, we'll have to apply to the commune for a new one. More negative credit. If they have one. If they don't, we have to wait until some are allocated, and we're pulling away from the shipping window. Two years without a system. This holding couldn't go two years without a system, we'd have to close it and then start all over again in two years. Five minutes and I pull the sticker down and throw it in the paper box.
Martine is waiting, arms crossed.
"Too much O2, like the garden. Maybe a leak is throwing everything off."
She opens a drawer and gets out a candle. I shut off the ventilation in the new yard and go out and spend the rest of the morning looking for leaks. Martine is good at finding leaks, she has an instinct, but even a newcomer like me can tell after a couple of hours that I'm not going to find anything. No drafts at any joints, the seams are all straight, no bubbles in the sealer. I turn the ventilation back on and turn it off in the old yard. After that I check the garden, find the cat sleeping on top of the ductwork, which tells us where he goes when we can't find him, but no leaks.
Martine comes out to the garden. "Find anything?" she asks.
"No," I say, "the joints all look fine. I'll check the programming and run some diagnostics."
"Do you think it might be the programming or do you think it's the system?"
I shrug, I don't know.
"Alexi," she says sharply, "we'll deal with it, whatever it is."
Martine and her iron will. Sometimes, an iron will isn't enough.
I go back into the house and jack into the system and set up tests to run. When I jack out Martine is standing there. I'm sitting on the floor next to the panel so I have to look up at her. She's got Martine's intent look. If you don't know her you'd think she was frowning at you.
"The tests have to run," I explain. "It'll be awhile."
"I just came to tell you come eat some lunch." She puts her hand on my shoulder, and I cover it with mine. Uncharacteristic of Martine, that touch. I don't know whether to take it as comfort or an indication of the gravity of the situation.
So we eat lunch, and I go out and clean the filters in the garden. Martine comes out and opens the skylight. Light wind on the surface. Sand shushes softly, the sky is an unnatural cobalt and the sunlight is thin but hard, even with the ultraviolet filtered out. We work through the early afternoon. Martine's bees drone, working the garden with us. We're the only place with screen doors in the whole ridge, but I like the bees. I like the screen doors, too. They're normal, like home on Earth.
At 3:30 the one between the house and the garden slams and Theresa comes in with Linda.
"Hi Little Heart," I say, and realize my mistake too late. She gives me a withering look. It is not appropriate to call an eight-year-old by what she refers to as her 'baby-name' in front of her friends.
"Hello, Comrade Alexi," Linda says politely, "Hello Comrade Martine."
"Dad, can we have lemonade?"
I glance at Martine, who nods. "Okay. Don't do anything with the system, I'm running tests."
"Okay."
Linda started coming over about a year ago and she and Theresa have become 'best friends'. At first I was afraid that the attraction was the fruit juice in the cooler, but I think that the truth is that there just aren't that many children. There are less than 1,500 people in Jerusalem Ridge.