Harley nodded in understanding. Then he got a concerned look on his face. “Cap? What do we do if the gears slip?”
Cap could see all of Harley’s gauges from his own seat and had noticed the progress indicator showing zero progress some time ago. He had been wondering how long it would take the kid to notice. The kid was quicker than some, slower than others. Cap leaned over and looked at the indicator, then straightened up and looked out his porthole. “Sometimes not much,” he said and pointed out Harley’s port.
Harley looked outside and saw that their progress continued. Then he looked back at the indicator, which still said that the creeper wasn’t moving, and got a puzzled look on his face.
Cap reached under the control panel’s bottom lip and took a large screwdriver from a homemade rack. He gave the progress indicator gauge a hard whack with the handle. The gauge immediately jumped from zero to their earlier indicated speed. “Sometimes ya gotta do a field calibration with a technical tool,” he explained. “I used to keep a little tack hammer under there, but the brass figured out what I did with it and took it away from me. When they still didn’t replace the indicator, I ‘found’ that screwdriver in one of the shops and nobody’s the wiser.” Harley smiled, nodding. Cap went on to explain, “I think the indicator locking up like that has something to do with the centrifugal force out here near the rim. At C 20, we will weigh an apparent 1.5 times our Earth normal. Then, too,” he grinned as he put the screwdriver back, “some things just act differently out here.”
After he straightened up, he gave Harley a speculative look. “So, Ace. What made you want to come into space? The pay? Running away from an ugly girlfriend?”
Harley flushed. “You’ll laugh at me if I tell you.”
“No. I won’t. Trust me,” Cap encouraged and grinned benignly.
Harley chuckled. “Okay. I came into space because I wanted to be a part of it. I mean here we are, human beings expanding out into the universe, going out to explore the galaxy! This has got to be the grandest time in history.” He paused, and his face fell. “But most of the people down there don’t even pay attention to it anymore. We’re just part of the little lights in the sky. They don’t care.” He looked directly at Cap. “I want to be part of it. I want my kids and their kids to be able to say that their dad was up here doing something to help us get to the stars!”
Further small talk was suspended when the creeper lurched as it hit the end-of-radial stop block, which automatically shut down the grabber-gears and engaged the safety clamps.
Cap reached down and reengaged the stay-brake. “Well, here we are, Ace; the end of the line. Concentric Stiffener Ring #20, home of random effects, edge monsters, and the place voted most likely to need repair. You now know what it’s like to be on the edge of one of those toy disks the kids throw around.” He double-checked the safety equipment’s indicators, and his voice grew serious. “On this trip your primary function will be just to watch me. Next time, if you’re really polite and beg a lot, I might let you handle the waldos.”
The Master Rigger stood in order to reach a contraption that was all wires and joints with two gloves on the end. Then he leaned his body back and pulled until the contraption started to move toward him. He quickly put his forearms on the gloves and bore down with his full weight. The machine rode smoothly to just above his chair and then he sat down, putting the gloves on while Harley watched. Cap reached with the gloves to take hold of a helmet that was also wired and put it on. A display screen automatically folded down in front of Harley so he could see what Cap saw in the helmet, and Cap began giving voice commands.
“Butthead. Access C3. Repair arm to gross position nine zero degrees left, SS plus max extension.”
Then he started teaching Harley. “As you may be aware, waldos are remote manipulation units that allow us to work with things that are in hostile environments. To use them you need several things. First you need the computer’s name, which in this case is Butthead.” Harley grinned as Cap went on in a dry tone. “The next time we come out you’ll be sitting here. There will be an initialization sequence and, if it suits you, you can name the computer whatever you want. If you rename it, you’d better remember the name. It won’t work for you unless you do, and you can’t rename it.
“Second you’ll need an access code. When I tell them to, the central office will issue you one. No need to worry about someone else using it. It’s keyed to your voice.”
Harley looked puzzled. “Then why have a code? If it’s keyed to my voice, why can’t I just tell it what I want it to do?”
Cap sighed at the familiar question. “Because when they designed these systems, they didn’t think being ten million miles from Earth and moving at over 1.5 million miles a day just to keep up with the ball of dirt was sufficient security. The waldo is top secret equipment that has only been around since Adam and Eve got caught with their fig leaves down. How should I know why they did it? Sometimes I think they do things like this just to give us something to bitch about. So, of course, we oblige them.
“Third, you need to learn the abbreviations we use with the computer. For example…”
“I know them,” Harley interrupted. “They’ve had us memorizing them for the past two months and practicing with waldo simulators. You just told the computer to swing the arm out ninety degrees and as high as it would go over the sail surface.”
Cap turned so Harley could see his face through the helmet and winked. “You got the basics. There are some commands we taught the computers that the boss doesn’t know about. You’ll learn those in time.” As soon as he had the waldos in position, he nodded his head toward the screen. “Now watch this real close. The sail is thin enough to slip between one second and the next, and as fragile as anything ever made. That’s why we have to be out here fixing it all the time. If God so much as farts, we get a hole in it.
“Butthead, Access C3. Hold access code to terminate. View equals three meters squared.” The view on the screen widened until it showed the requested area. The reason the sensors were reporting slackness in the sail became readily apparent. They could both see that it had torn loose at the corner and was slowly flapping in the solar wind.
“Crap!” Cap said to himself. “The bugger is loose. There’ll be no safe, secure job today.” He put the waldos away and then called the ship. “Bridge, C3.”
The bridge answered, “C3.”
“Bridge, we have a corner tear at R3/C20.”
“Roger C3. I hear a corner tear at R3/C20. What do you recommend?”
Cap responded, “Recommend forty percent reduction of spin and five percent reduction of area, then EVA to reattach.”
“Roger. I hear a request for four zero percent reduction of ship spin and take in the sails to reduce total area by point zero fiver, then EVA to reattach. Stand by, C3.”
Cap turned to Harley. “They will, of course, deny the request because to reduce sail area means to slow down. To slow down means to fall behind the Earth. To fall behind means that they’ll have to fire the ion engines to catch up… which means they’ll have to spend a lot of money. The question our Captain and CEO is now asking himself is why he should spend a lot of money and risk his performance bonus just to make a sail rigger’s job easier. The answer will be that he shouldn’t, that’s what we get paid for, and he’ll say no. Which should take him about… five… four… three… two… one… zero seconds to do.”