“Understood. I’ll let you know.”
Deliza stood behind Abby and off to the side, twisting and straining to see the displays on the physicist’s console as the numbers danced across the screen, changing every few seconds as the calculations constantly updated. After several minutes, she could no longer control herself. “Are you running those calculations concurrently through the same processing bank, or are you running each stream through a different bank?”
“Excuse me?” Abby asked. She was a bit put off by the child’s question, as well as a bit impressed.
“I’m sorry,” Deliza apologized. “I shouldn’t bother you.”
“That’s all right,” Abby assured her, remembering that the poor girl had recently lost both her mother and her home. “They are running through separate processing banks. Why do you ask?”
“It’s just that the calculations seem to be running abnormally slow.”
“Yes, they are,” Abby admitted. “I’m afraid this console wasn’t really designed for these types of calculations. Spatial equations can be quite processor-intensive. Normally, we would run them on the main frames, but much of that system was damaged during our first battle.”
“The computers in my father’s ship could run those equations in one tenth the time,” she said enthusiastically, “maybe even less.”
“Really?”
“Of course. Even the ones in the shuttles could run them faster. The shuttles are highly automated, and their flight systems use entire arrays of processing banks. They need them to run the auto-piloting systems.”
“That’s interesting,” Abby admitted. “Do you think it’s possible to interface them with our systems?”
“I don’t see why not. They might lose a bit of performance due to the need to translate languages, but the hit should be negligible. I can help you install them,” Deliza offered.
“I’ll speak to the captain about it as soon as I finish plotting the next jump.”
“The next jump? Where are we now?”
“We’re in the middle of the Pentaurus cluster, about halfway between Takara and Darvano.”
“That’s in the middle of nowhere. Why are we out here?”
“Due to our limitations in power generation, the jump drive only has a range of 10 light years. And the captain prefers to jump into a system with enough energy to jump out again in a hurry, in case there is trouble.”
“A wise precaution. Then we are waiting to recharge your energy reserves?”
“Yes,” Abby answered, surprised that she had come to the correct conclusion with so little information. “You catch on quickly, don’t you?”
“My father says I have a gift for science,” Deliza admitted. “It’s really all I do.”
“Don’t you have any other interests or hobbies?”
“No, not really. But I do enjoy science, very much in fact.”
“You remind me of myself at your age. I couldn’t get enough of it. My mother used to tell me to go out and be with my friends, but I preferred to study.”
Suddenly, the console beeped. Abby turned to check the status of her calculations. “There we are. All done.” She turned back to Deliza. “Now, let’s go talk to the captain about those computers.”
“You wanted to see me, sir?” Jessica asked as she entered the ready room.
“Yeah, Jess. Remember how you were talking about signals intelligence earlier?”
“Sure,” she answered as she plopped down on the couch.
Nathan was amused at the way she always went straight to that couch. “You really like that couch, don’t you?”
“Hey, what can I say? I’ve got a thing for couches.”
“Have you moved into your new quarters yet?”
“Naw, why?”
“They’re bigger. And they’ve got couches.”
“Great. I guess that’s next on my to-do list. So what were you saying about signals intel?”
“Comms reported a lot of civilian signals coming in from all directions. Mostly general broadcasting and communications stuff. Guess since we’re sitting in the middle of everything, we’re getting it from all over the cluster. I told comms to record everything, but he says with half the main frame still down, he’ll run out of storage space in less than a day.”
“Well, since we’re at least a few years out from any star, everything we pickup is going to be at least a few years old. So none of it will be actionable. But it could help give us a feel for the area-it’s history, customs, popular opinion, and the like. Hell, it could even tell us what the rebellion has been up to over the last few years. That is, if we get lucky and pick up a news broadcast or something.”
“Yeah, you’re right. But what about the storage issue.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’re only going to be out here for five hours anyway. After that we’ll be sitting much closer in, so the sig-int will be fresh. Of course, that presents a whole new problem. How are we going to translate it all?”
“There’s a woman, one of the workers. She was serving molo stew last night. Nara-something. Naralena, I think. She speaks like eight languages fluently. Worked as a translator before.”
“Eight languages? How the hell did she end up on Haven?”
“No idea. I wasn’t sure it was polite to ask, to be honest. Maybe she can help.”
“What the hell. Apparently we’re accepting all applicants.”
Nathan’s eyebrows raised momentarily, acknowledging that her pun had more truth in it than she might have realized. He pressed the call button on the comm-panel on the desk. “Can you hail Naralena to my ready room? She’s one of our guests.”
“Yes, sir,” the comm-officer replied over the comm-set.
“Captain?” Abby’s voice came from the hatchway. “A moment?”
“Of course, Doctor,” Nathan said, gesturing for her to enter. Abby stepped through the hatchway into the ready room, with Deliza following. Deliza looked sheepishly into the room, obviously feeling ill at ease in the captain’s official office.
Abby waited for Deliza to step up next to her before beginning. “Deliza has informed me that the computers used on the shuttle might be more efficient at processing the multi-spatial calculations used for plotting our jumps. If she is correct, it could speed up the process ten-fold. With your permission, I’d like to look into it.”
“As long as it doesn’t interfere with the operations of the drive, I don’t see why not,” Nathan answered. “You can probably use the one from the out-of-service shuttle. I believe they were planning on using it for spare parts anyway. I’ll let Josh and Loki know that you’ll be coming by.” Nathan looked directly at Deliza instead of Abby. “Thank you, Deliza.”
“You’re quite welcome, sir,” she answered as they turned to exit.
Jessica shook her head. “And the applicants just keep getting younger.”
“According to Vlad, that little girl is smarter than any of us.”
A few moments after Abby and Deliza departed, the Volonese woman, Naralena, appeared at the hatchway.
“Excuse me?” the woman said. “I was told you wished to speak with me.”
“Yes, Naralena, right?”
“Yes,” she said as she entered the room.
“This is Jessica Nash, my Chief of Security.”
“Pleased,” Jessica said. Naralena simply nodded politely.
“I was wondering if you could help us out.” Nathan said.
“I’d be happy to help in whatever way that I can, Captain.”
“We’re collecting a lot of transmissions, from neighboring stars and such. Communications, broadcasting, all sorts of stuff. But it’s all in languages that we don’t yet understand. We were hoping that you might be able to translate at least some of it for us.”
“I can certainly try. I do speak most of the common languages in this area. Is there anything in particular you are looking for?”
“We’re just trying to get a better understanding of the societies and cultures of the area, as well as a bit of recent history.”
“Yes, of course. I can see how that would be of use to you. Of course, I’d be more than happy to translate whatever I can.”