A woman in a plain, white kijab approached them down the corridor, kicking up the hem of her black dress at every step.
“‘Dama Al Shei, ‘Ster Lipinski, welcome to the Aquarium.” She waved at the rows of windows. “I’m Second Administrator Shirar.” She shook Al Shei’s hand and beamed at Lipinski. “We’ve been waiting months for these updates. It’s going to triple our garden’s efficiency.”
“Then we should get them right down here,” said Al Shei briskly. “Thank you for agreeing to letting us supervise the download from here. This data’s a little tricky.” She looked to Lipinski for confirmation.
“Tightly packed at any rate,” he said.
“Of course it is,” Shirar smiled, “It’s biology. Let me show you our download facilities.” She beckoned for them to follow her.
The Second Administrator walked them down the gallery past window after window of activity. The staff on the other side chattered, sketched, searched and transferred. In a few of the offices, two or three employees worked together on some problem.
“It looks as if you could consult for the entire colony from here,” remarked Al Shei after they passed the twentieth office.
Shirar snorted. “Sometimes I feel like we do. We’ve got twenty percent of the medical practitioners in the Farther Kingdom on our subscriber’s list, and I swear to you some of them won’t diagnose a hangnail without tying up our lines for half an hour.” She grinned again. “This is not counting the other hospitals we support.”
Shirar stopped in front of a thickly hinged door and stuck her pen into the reader socket. After a moment, the door swung back and she led them inside.
The room was three times as large as any of the offices they had passed. The walls were a solid mass of input boards, memory boards and monitor screens.
Lipinski relaxed his shoulders and straightened up some from his perpetual stoop. Amid this bewildering mass of communications hardware, he was at home.
His expert eye immediately picked up the main uplink boards and he set his toolkit down next to them. He whistled to one of the chairs in the far corner which obediently trundled over so he could sit down.
With a few penstrokes he called up the configuration and capacity of the hospital’s links as well as the mapping for the storage room’s lines and depositories.
“And the new data is to be stored, where?” Lipinski cocked an eyebrow at the Second Administrator.
“Area 6421C.” Shirar circled the depository’s location on the screen. “We’ve had it waiting empty for a week for you.”
Lipinski ran his pen along the pathways to the storage area. The section of the diagram that he traced enlarged itself and the current load and configuration information printed across the top of the board.
Lipinski studied it for a moment, pursed his lips and nodded. Al Shei gave silent thanks for the fact that he did not seem inclined to talk to the boards in front of their client.
“It all looks right to spec,” he said. “Have you opened your virus filters?”
“Area 6813B, open access.” Shirar gave Al Shei a sideways look. “Thank you for transmitting your storage records to us. To say we were concerned when you reported a virus would be an understatement.”
“I cannot blame you at all,” Al Shei replied, grateful that New Medina’s dedication to courtesy kept Shirar’s language restrained. She did not want to know what the woman had really thought when the news came through. “The virus was an invasion of the ship’s system and it did not touch our cargo, for which, believe me, we were all thankful.” Which would also be an understatement.
Lipinski twisted around to face Shirar. “Shall I get started?”
“Please do.” Shirar waved him a go-ahead signal.
Lipinski wrote the Pasadena’s call codes and his own name across the uplink board and waited while the system transmitted the message up the lines and across the atmosphere to the station. The screen above the board cleared to show the scene in the Pasadena’s comm center. Odel sat stiffly at the main boards, obviously very much aware that this needed to work smoothly.
“Pasadena here,” came Odel’s voice through the intercom. “Waiting on your signal, Houston.” The secondary screens lit up with the current status of the Pasadena’s lines.
“Setting the boards now, Pasadena,” replied Lipinski. His blue eyes flickered back and forth as he took in the line readings. He rapidly adjusted the settings on the board in front of him to match what the ship was using. “Start sending in five… four… three… ”
“Bismillahir,” said Shirar.
“Bismillahir,” agreed Al Shei, a little more fervently than she intended.
“Now,” said Lipinski.
On the screen, Odel turned his pen in its socket. The signal load statistics increased on the board and the free capacity stats shrank. Odel ran his own checks, monitoring flow, switching storage taps, watching the code print out straight from Pasadena’s hold. Rows of code appeared on the memory board in front of Lipinski. The Houston read the information intently, writing on the board in front of him without looking at his hand; adjusting, controlling, guiding. He nodded a couple of times. His brow was furrowed and his lips moved constantly, but he didn’t stop. He didn’t call to Odel to halt the download. Al Shei realized her heart had risen to her throat and she swallowed hard, trying to force herself to be calm.
Either it’s going to work or it isn’t. You’ve got one of the best in the business doing the job. You’re just going to have to wait it out a little while longer.
Five interminable minutes later, Odel lifted his head. “That’s all of it, Houston. Transmission complete.”
Lipinski’s eyes swept across the final row of code. “Okay, Pasadena we’ve got it. Thanks.” He turned in his chair and Al Shei saw a look that meant “no problems,” flash her way.
She had to stop herself from letting out a sigh of relief.
“And there you are Second Administrator Shirar,” she said brightly. “Your bio-garden’s data, and I’m only sorry our humble ship could not get it here faster.”
Shirar gave her a small bow. “You have done exactly as we hoped. The remaining credit will be transferred into your account as soon as I submit a receipt of verification to our accounting center. It should be done within the next two hours. Will you wait?”
“If you’ll excuse us, ‘Dama,” said Al Shei as Lipinski got to his feet. “It has been a long flight and I confess my Houston and I were both looking forward to stretching our legs and seeing your city. The Pasadena will be in dock for another week, so if you need to contact us, the city system will be able to find us in no time.”
Shirar smiled and stood aside making a sweeping gesture towards the door. “I understand perfectly. I’ll contact you as soon as the accounts have been cleared.”
“Thank you for taking the time, Second Administrator,” said Al Shei, sticking to courtesies, even though Lipinski was evidently getting impatient.
“Thank you for supplying our needs, ‘Dama.” Shirar walked them out into the corridor. “I am certain you will be hearing from us again.”