Chapter 6: Making Plans for the Future

Miriam had been working on her own project list. She was deep into cellular automata and artificial intelligence, or rather machine intelligence. I paid her visit and found her talking into a microphone in an unintelligible patois while watching a grid of high-resolution monitors "Hi. Whatcha doin'?"

She hit a key which paused the action on the screen, then turned to greet me. "Hi! Long time no see. I'm teaching a computer intelligence how to identify a component, test it, and replace it if the thing tests outside of its design envelope."

She looked tired. "Over the past two years I've taught a computer to input a ship's design and bill of materials, identify the locations of those components, direct spider drones to the a problem location by the shortest path, secure replacement components and associate testing protocols for each component. I'm in the final stages of problem isolation, repair drone dispatching, failed module replacement and disposition, testing protocol implementation and a stateful return to preparedness for the next event."

"I can sure see the application. Parallel repair teams sent out in case of extensive damage. What about re-running cable and rebuilding hull sections?" She said, "It's coming. I plan to have a template for disaster crew spider drones ready within a year." "Is it a hierarchical design?" "Not yet, but it's definitely planned. That way instructions can be passed down to the dispatched team leaders by Q-bit links which radio them on to the workers and replacement unit requests are sent back up the chain." I said, "Good planning. Coordinated repairs could be done across a ship, a shipyard or an entire solar system."

We talked for a while, then agreed to have dinner together. It was a pleasant diversion of an evening. I'd missed her company and told her so. We agreed to spend more time with each other.

The next day I wrote a request to be considered during the next meeting of the command staff. It addressed the possible modification in crew staffing using Merry's environmentally hardened repair drones and their capability of massively parallel operation teamed with precise control at a distance when augmented by Q-bit management links. I also requested that she be evaluated for admittance into the ranks of the command staff to reward her multi-year work on the project, which would authorize her for the progeric regimen.

I wouldn't want the woman I wanted to marry to have a radically shorter life span than mine.

I spent the next few years with a CAD package designing a purpose-built interstellar ship. I incorporated redundancy after redundancy, as nobody was going to come give us a tow to the garage if we blew a transmission, so to speak. My design incorporated reinforced tunnels throughout the ship for Merry's spider bots to access all the electrical systems, the drive modules and the sensor pods.

I designed the shape to match the propulsion field geometry. The final form looked like two cones with their large ends glued together and the points chopped off flat. I designed it to have two sets of landing bays, one at either end of the major axis. The plan also incorporated gravity generators, tractor beams and black hole generators. Offset from the landing bay entrances were to be two large parabolic dishes which were equipped with sensitive RF detectors and high-powered exciters that could modulate and pump out a couple gigawatts per dish. The 3-D wire frame model was beautiful. Merry thought so too.