Free Titan by Ben Bova Page A

staff paid much attention to his dress code.
    “We’ve been working on nanos for self-repair and maintenance,” Cardenas was saying to Urbain. “That was what you asked for.”
    “Yes, I realize that,” Urbain replied, running a nervous finger along his trim moustache. “But we are confronted by a new problem now.”
    Eberly hadn’t actually been invited to this meeting, but once he heard that Urbain was going to Cardenas for help he decided he had to listen in. And Urbain was too ridiculously polite to tell the habitat’s chief administrator to keep his nose out of scientific matters. So Eberly sat in one of the folding chairs that Cardenas had provided for them while Urbain and the nanotech expert thrashed out their problems. Off at the far side of the lab, Cardenas’s lone assistant hovered among the gleaming metal equipment, intently listening. What’s his name? Eberly asked himself. Tavalera, came the answer. The engineer we picked up after the refueling accident at Jupiter.

    “As I understand the problem,” Cardenas was saying, “the probe isn’t sending any data to you.”
    Urbain touched his moustache again before answering. “ Titan Alpha is not uplinking data from its sensors, that is true. We have reason to believe the sensors are working and gathering data. Alpha simply is not relaying the information to us.”
    “Curious,” muttered Cardenas.
    “Frustrating,” snapped Urbain. “We are receiving telemetry from Alpha ’s maintenance program. All systems appear to be functioning properly—except for the sensor data uplink.”
    Cardenas straightened up on her stool, crossed her legs, glanced over at her assistant, then made a little shrug. “I don’t see what we can do to help you, Dr. Urbain. It’s—”
    “Please. Call me Eduoard. We have known each other long enough to use our first names.”
    “Eduoard,” Cardenas said, with a slight dip of her chin. “I’m afraid I don’t see how nanos can help you, unless you can pinpoint the cause of the malfunction.”
    Urbain sighed mightily. “That is the real problem. We don’t know what is causing the silence. No one knows. My people have been racking their brains for three days now. And three nights, I might add. They are going over all the computer programming, line by line. It is maddening.”
    “So how can nanos help?”
    With a shake of his head, Urbain said, “I was hoping that perhaps there might be some way to deliver nanomachines to Alpha that could construct a new uplink antenna.”
    “A backup to the existing antenna?”
    “Or a replacement,” said Urbain.
    He’s desperate, Eberly said to himself. Grasping at straws.
    Cardenas got down from the stool. “Let me think about it, Eduoard. That might be possible, but it won’t be easy …” Her voice trailed off.
    Urbain got to his feet. “I would appreciate anything you can do.”
    Cardenas walked him to the door of the laboratory, Eberly following a pace or so behind them. “Please keep me informed of your analysis of the situation,” she told Urbain. “You never
know, something that seems trivial to you might open a window for us.”
    “I will,” said Urbain. His gloomy tone showed how hopeless he felt. “Thank you.”
    As soon as the lab door closed behind them, Eberly made a hasty farewell to Urbain and hurried outside the laboratory building, into the sunshine, along the gently rising street up to the administrative center and into his own office. Sliding into his desk chair he told the phone to locate Ilya Timoshenko and ask him to come to the chief administrator’s office immediately.
    Timoshenko ran against me in the general election, Eberly told himself. So did Urbain. If they’re smart enough to combine their votes they could defeat me in June. I’ve got to get them working against one another. Divide and conquer, that’s the rule.
    Timoshenko was not in the navigation center, which was his nominal work station, for the simple reason that he had