Chapter 9 Chapter nine

By the time the Sisu approached Lothian, Soapy was offered a combat post, finally a job worthy of a man.At first, he was assigned to help in the central dressing room, which was a dispensable job.What got him a boost was his knowledge of mathematics. Before that, he attended ship school.Baslim had taught him the basics, but that knowledge did not distinguish him from his teachers.Subjects considered important here are Finnish, trade customs, business practices, import and export laws of many planets, hydroponics, spaceship economics, spaceship safety and damage control, etc.None of these subjects were mentioned to him by Baslimti.He only emphasizes language, science, mathematics, galactic writing symbols, and history.However, Soapy devoured this new knowledge extremely quickly, and only those trained strictly by Baslim's method could have such a high speed.Tradesmen need to master applied mathematics, and bookkeeping, accounting, astronautics, and hydrogen fusion-powered standard spacecraft nucleics are all based on mathematics.Thorby struggled through his first term exams, and the second term was not too difficult.By the third semester, the teacher was amazed to find that the ex-Flakey had already studied multidimensional geometry.

So they reported to the captain that there was a math genius on board. Although this statement was not true, it made Soapy change to a new job, which was to operate the starboard fire control computer. For trade ships, the greatest danger lies at the beginning and end of each jump.At this time, the flying speed of the spacecraft is lower than the speed of light.In theory, it is not entirely impossible to detect and intercept spaceships traveling many times faster than the speed of light in tangled space.But in fact, doing so is as easy as trying to hit a specific drop of rain with a bow and arrow in a storm in the middle of the night.But if the attacker is fast and the victim is a lumbering cargo ship traveling below the speed of light, the chances of a successful attack are greatly increased.

Sisu has a hundred times the standard acceleration of gravity. In order to shorten the danger time as much as possible, it has to use all its "leg strength".However, even if the speed of the spacecraft continued to increase, increasing by 1000 meters per second, it would still take 3.5 standard days to reach the speed of light. For half a week, it was a long, agonizing wait.If the speed could be doubled, the danger period would be cut in half, and the Sisu would be as agile as the Raider.But that would mean expanding the fusion chamber eight times its current size, and the radiation protection, auxiliary equipment, and paramagnetic containment required to ensure the safety of the hydrogen reaction would have to be increased accordingly.As the size of the equipment increases, the cargo capacity decreases.The traders on the ship depended on their labor for food. Even if there were no parasites that squeezed their blood and sweat, they could not bear the diminishing profits. This diminishing was restricted by the iron law of multidimensional space physics, and the rate of decline was calculated by geometric progression.In this way, the Sisu could only go as fast as it could provide, and even that was nowhere near as fast as a raider without its cargo dragging it down.

With that much cargo, maneuvering the Sisu is no easy feat either.When it performs a transition in a dark space, it must maintain the correct direction without any deviation.If there is a slight difference in departure time, thousands of miles will be lost when leaving the jump, greatly deviating from the established trading location.Once this kind of mistake is made, the profit will turn into a loss.In addition to this, there are other issues to consider. The captain must be prepared to completely cut off the power, and sometimes risk the complete failure of the artificial gravity inside the ship. This means that the soft human body is suddenly exposed to 100 standard gravity. There's a good chance the boatman will be crushed into strawberry jam.

That's why a captain gets a stomach ulcer.It's not about haggling, calculating discounts and commissions, or trying to figure out how to get the best return for what's on board.Long jumps in the dark won't give him that disease either (he can relax and tease the kids when he does).What killed him was the process of the jump start and end.It was a long agony, during which at any moment momentary decisions might have to be made, on which the life or liberty of the whole family depended. If the purpose of the marauders was to destroy merchant ships, there was no hope of surviving the Sisu and her sister ships.But raiders want valuables and slaves, and you get nothing by blowing up a ship.

The traders have no scruples, destroying the incoming ship is the most ideal solution.The price of self-seeking nuclear bombs is astonishingly expensive, and using them against attackers will cause great financial losses.However, if the computer shows that the target is within range, traders will never hesitate.But on the other hand, attackers don't use destructive weapons unless they want to save their own lives.The tactic of the raiders is often to use a beam of so-called "anesthetic light" to turn the merchant ship "blind", destroy the equipment on the ship, and then make themselves close to the merchant ship, making everyone on board lose their ability to resist.If not, just kill them and rob the merchant ship and goods.

In such a situation, the trading ships would flee if they could, and had to fight with them when they couldn't.But once a war starts, they will fight to the death. As long as the Sisu travels at sublight speeds, it uses its detectors to pick up every movement in multidimensional space: every disturbance, the whisper of a conversation in a space, or the "white noise" of a spaceship accelerating upward. .The data is fed into the spaceship space flight simulator to find out the question: Where does the other ship go?What is its path forward?How fast?How is the acceleration?Can it catch us before we reach a certain space?If the displayed answer is threatening, the processed data will be immediately entered into the port and starboard fire control computers. At this time, the Sisu must immediately prepare for combat: the bomber will activate the nuclear bomb seeker, touch Looking at the smooth surface of the missile, he murmured softly the spell to exorcise demons; the chief engineer turned on the suicide switch that could turn the power equipment into a giant hydrogen bomb, and prayed in his heart that when the spaceship finally faced destruction, he would have the courage to save the entire crew. Send it to the west; the captain keeps issuing orders to divide the crew into two shifts, each on four-hour shifts, and implement a state of wartime emergency—the cook puts out the fire, the assistant engineer turns off the air circulation switch, the agricultural staff and their green plants Saying goodbye, everyone hurried to the combat post.Mothers picked up babies, strapped them, and tied them tightly to themselves.

Then began to wait.But that wasn't the case for Soapy and those who, like him, were in charge of the fire-control computers.They were sweating profusely, because for the next few minutes or hours, it was their hands to say that life aboard the Sisu was in their hands.These fire control computers analyze the data transmitted from the simulator in milliseconds to determine whether the missile launcher can hit the target and provide answers to four questions: launch "possible" or "impossible", friendly side Is it possible for the spacecraft to change its orientation by cutting off the power, whether the other spacecraft can change its orientation in this way, and whether the spacecraft of both parties can also change their orientation.Automated systems can process these answers on their own, but machines don't think.Every computer is designed with half the factor in the judgment of the operator: What's going to happen in five distant minutes?Or, what happens if the current situation changes?If the situation is in flux...and in this case, whether to hit the target.

Analysis of these variables is left to human judgment.An operator's intuitive prediction can save or lose a ship.A beam of anesthesia light travels at the speed of light, but the missile can only reach a few hundred kilometers per second at most, but this situation can also occur: the attacker is approaching, and the merchant ship has entered the effective range of the pencil-thin anesthesia light.The assailant fired a sedative beam, and before that, the trade ship had fired a homing missile... When the raider exploded into a cloud of atomic dust, the hit merchant ship would still survive.

However, if the operator is too anxious and starts a few seconds too early, or if he is too cautious and moves a few seconds late, he may lose his spacecraft.Too hasty, and the missile will launch prematurely and miss its target; too cautious, and the missile will never get a chance to launch. Obviously, old people are not suitable for this kind of work.The best fire control personnel should be youthful men and women. They have quick brains, quick actions, full of self-confidence, no rules and regulations, and can accurately grasp all kinds of changing relationships by intuition.They are not afraid of death because they have not thought of death.

Trading ships must be on the lookout for such young men at all times, and Thorby seems to have just happened to have a talent for mathematics, of course, he also has other talents, such as playing chess well without fear of pressure, and can play fastball.His advisor was Jerry Kingsowy, his nephew and roommate.Jerry is the junior in the family, but seems older in age.Outside the computer room, he called Thorby "Uncle", but at work, Thorby had to address him as "Senior Starboard Fire Controller" plus "Sir". Jerry had been in charge of training Thorby during the long, dark weeks of the jump to Lothian.The plan was for Soapy to learn hydroponics and Jerry himself to be the senior cargo clerk.But the ship already has many agricultural workers on board, and the cargo crew has historically had little to do during spaceflight.So Captain Kraussar asked Jerry to train Soapy in the computer room. During half a week when the merchant ship was accelerating to the speed of light, the entire ship was in a state of combat readiness, and each combat position required two people on duty.Jerry's junior fire controller is his sister Marta.The computer has dual consoles, each of which can be operated with a selector switch.In combat readiness, the two sit side by side, Jerry is in charge of the operation, and Marta is ready to take over at any time. Soapy studied intensely for a while to learn how to operate the fire control computer.Afterwards, Jerry put Soapy in charge of one console, Marta in charge of the other, and himself entered the problems they were asked to solve from the command room.Each console is recorded, and the determination made by each operator can be viewed and compared with previous combat data.All past combat data, whether threats or actual combat firefights, are recorded one by one. It didn't take long for Soapy to have a headache—Marta was much stronger than he was. So Soapy went from bad to worse.Whenever he sweated profusely and tried to guess the intention of the robbery ship that once appeared on the screen, he would be painfully aware that the slender and beautiful brunette beside him was using her nimble fingers to press the keyboard with precision and precision. And the knob is operated, correcting the deviation and the route, calmly and unhurriedly.It turns out later that his companion "saved the ship" while he himself did the exact opposite.What a humiliating experience. To make matters worse, he was subconsciously aware that she was a girl, without knowing it himself, only feeling that she was unsettling him. After a round of operations was completed, Jerry shouted in the command room: "The exercise is over, don't go away." After a while, he came out, checked their video tapes, and looked at the exercise scores on the photosensitive paper like a bystander .Jerry pouted at Soapy's operations log and said, "Apprentice, you shot three times...you fired at the enemy fifty thousand kilometers away and missed a single shot. We don't care about the cost—it's just Grandma's brainchild." That's all. But our purpose is to blow up the pirate ship, not scare it. You have to wait until you can shoot." "I have already done my best!" "Not enough. Now look at you, girl." This intimate address made Soapy even more angry.The brother and sister are very close, so the official titles are ignored.Soapy also wanted to use a more intimate address, but he was frustrated.He is the "apprentice" and they are the "senior controller" and "junior controller".Soapy has no choice, because in the training stage, he can only be a primary school student.For a week, when he wasn't training, he called Jerry "step-nephew," and Jerry discreetly referred to him by family titles.But then he thought it was a foolish thing to do, so he called him Jerry everywhere.But as long as he was training, Jerry still called him "The Apprentice," and Marta called him that too. Jerry looked at his sister's operating log and nodded. "Very good girl! You were within a second of your post-analyzed best shot and three seconds better than "somebody", and I have to admit it was a great shot...because that actual shot was me What the heck, that raider ship from Instair...remember?" "Of course I do." She glanced at Soapy. Soapy was furious and said, "It's not fair!" He started to unbutton his seat belt. Surprised, Jerry asked, "What did you say, apprentice?" "I said, it's not fair! You sent me a question and I dealt with it calmly, only to get scolded by you for not being perfect. But she just fiddled with the control keys and got what she already had. Knowing the answer... it seems that I am very incompetent!" Marta looked shocked.Soapy walked straight to the door, saying, "I didn't ask for this job! I'm going to the captain and asking for a change." "Apprentice!" Soapy stopped.Jerry went on softly: "Sit down and wait till I'm done. After that, if you think it's necessary, it's not too late to see the captain." Soapy sat down. "I have two things to say," Jerry continued calmly. "First," he turned to his sister, "junior controller, before the drill, did you know what questions you'd be asked this time?" "I don't know, Senior Controller." "Have you practiced this subject before?" "No." "Then how do you remember?" "What? Well, didn't you just say that it was a raiding ship flying from Instair. I'll never forget it, because the dinner after that, you and the old grandma - the patriarch - sat together." Jerry turned to Soapy and said, "Did you see that? She tracked the marauder as calmly as I tracked that one last time, and did a better job than I did. Having her as my junior I'm proud to have tracked down the fire controller. Tell you what, Mr. stupid junior cadet, that fight happened before this junior controller even started his cadet. She didn't even practice that fight. In this On the one hand, she is better than you." "Well," said Soapy sullenly, "maybe I'll never be able to do it. As I said, I don't want to." "Listen, no one asks for this job because it's the most frustrating job. And yet, no one quits the job. It's the job that quits him—wait until the test analysis shows that someone has lost His skills. Perhaps my own skills have begun to decline. I promise you: you have only two paths, either keep on studying, or I'll go to the captain and tell him you're not good enough.During this period... as long as you dare to speak nonsense, I will drag you to the patriarch! he snapped. "After speaking, he left the room. After a while, they heard Jerry's voice: "Flying objects appear! Starboard engine room, report!" At this moment, the dinner bell rang, and Marta said still seriously: "The starboard tracker is in place. The data is displaying and running." Her fingers began to tap the keyboard.Soapy was so absorbed in operating his console that he wasn't hungry anyway.For several days afterward, Soapy spoke to Jerry only when it was most necessary, in the most formal tone.He often sees Marta, either at training or across the lounge for meals.He treated Marta lukewarm and tried to be as good as she was.He can see her at other times, and young people can associate freely in public places.He had qualms about Marta because she was his niece and they both lived on the starboard side, but that wasn't a social barrier. He couldn't avoid Jerry because they ate at the same table and slept in the same room.But Soapy could use formality to put a barrier between them.No one said anything, it happened so often that even Fritz pretended not to see it. One afternoon Thorby stopped by the lounge to watch a feature film about the Sargonians.He was patient, watching and criticizing the film at the same time.But when the movie was over, he happened to see Marta come and stand in front of him.She spoke to him respectfully as a niece and asked if he would play pinball with her before dinner. Soapy was just about to say no when he noticed her face: she was looking at him pitifully.So I had to agree. "Okay, thank you, Marta. Be active and have a better appetite." She was overjoyed and said, "Great! I've given Ilsa a table, let's go!" Thorby has three wins and one tie... This result is not ordinary, because she is the women's pinball champion, and when she played against the men's champion, the opponent could only let her have one point.But Soapy didn't think much about winning or losing, he just felt happy. His fire control level gradually improved, partly because he worked hard on it, partly because he liked complex geometry, and partly because he had developed a sharp mind when he was a beggar. .Jerry never compared the levels of Marta and Thorby loudly, but stood aside and briefly commented on Thorby's record, "It's better", or "It's okay", and finally, finally, it was "You've made it" .Since then, Thorby's mental outlook has been refreshed, his mood has been relaxed, and he has spent more time socializing and playing with Marta more often. The journey in the dark is gradually approaching the end.One morning, they finished their last training session.At this moment, Jerry said loudly, "Take a break! I'll be back in a moment." Soapy's excited and tense mood relaxed, but it didn't take long for him to feel restless, because he wasn't sure if something happened to his operation just now. Blunder. "Junior Controller... Do you think he would blame me if I went to watch my tape?" "I don't think so," Marta replied. "I'll get the tape, and I'm to blame." "I don't want you to get into trouble." Marta said calmly, "No." She went behind Soby's dashboard, took out the videotape, straightened it, and watched it.Then he took out his belt again and made a comparison. Then Marta looked at him solemnly and said, "It was a very good job, Soapy." It was the first time she called his name, but Soapy barely noticed. "Really? You really think so?" "It was a great run, Soapy. We both hit the mark. But yours was the best, right between 'possibility' and 'critical limit', and I was a little too hasty. You want see?" Soapy's examination results were rudimentary, but he happily believed her.Then Jerry came in, took the two tapes, glanced at Soapy's tape first, then looked at it carefully. "I had a postmortem done before I came down," he said. "How did it turn out, sir?" asked Soapy impatiently. "Well... I have to check it again after dinner. But from the video, it seems that you didn't make any big mistakes." Marta said, "Come on, man. It's a good fight, and you know it!" "So what if it's true?" Jerry grinned. "You don't want our star student to become conceited, do you?" "Pooh!" "I'll see your results later, my ugly little girl. Let's have dinner together." They walked through a narrow corridor and came side by side to the passage on the second deck.Soapy sighed deeply. "Is there a problem?" his nephew asked. "Not at all!" said Thorby, with his hands on each of their waists. "In a little while, Jerry, you and Marta will be able to make me a good marksman." For the first time since Soapy's harsh criticism that day, he called his teacher's name to his face.But Jerry accepted his gesture of friendliness with alacrity. "Don't get your hopes up too high, my roommate. But I think we're done." He added, "I know, Aunt Torah is giving us her famous cold stare. I see, we'll just Stop flirting in front of others, girl, you can act independently. Auntie must think so too. " "Bah, fuck her!" Marta said briskly, "Thorby played so beautifully just now, what can she do to us?" The Sisu escaped from the jump in the dark, and the speed of the ship dropped below the speed of light.It is less than 50 billion kilometers away from Lothian's sun.In a few days, they will enter the next market.The spacecraft began to implement four-hour shifts. Marta was alone on the first shift, and Jerry asked the trainee to join him.The first shift is the easiest.Even if a looting ship accurately knows the departure time and destination of the Sisu through space communication, after a long-distance jump spanning many light years, it is impossible to guess where and when the Sisu will enter the normal state. space. The next shift is Jerry and Thorby.Soapy was very nervous. This time it was not practice.Jerry sat in the chair for a few minutes and said with a smile, "Relax. If the heart beats too fast and the blood flows too much, your back will hurt and you won't be able to keep going." Soapy smiled and said, "I'll try." "That's much better. Let's play a game." Jerry took a box-like thing out of his pocket and snapped it open. "what is this?" "A scare box. Perfect for this." Jerry snapped it to the switch that determined which console was in charge of fire control. "Can you see the switch?" "Well, you can't." "Here comes the fun." Jerry fiddled with the switch behind the screen. "If a missile needs to be fired, which one of us will be in charge of the fire?" "How do I know? Get that thing off, it's making me so nervous." "That's the fun part of this game. Maybe I'll operate the switch and you'll be the showpiece, maybe you'll be the one pulling the trigger and I'll just be the one dozing in the chair. Every once in a while, I'll fiddle with the switch." Only the switch, but you don't know where I put the switch. So when the emergency arises - and I have a hunch that something will happen - you can't take it for granted that the fingers are as precise as the differential meter Good friend Old Jerry will keep the situation under control. It could well be you who will save the ship at that point. Yourself." A vision appeared before Soapy's eyes: the whole crew—and the missiles in the missile bay below—waited for him, waiting for him to accurately solve difficult problems of life and death, jump space, moving course and complex geometry. . "You're kidding," he said softly. "You're not going to leave me alone. Why, the captain'll have to skin you alive if you do that." "Ah, that's where you're wrong. Because one day, a cadet will launch a real missile for the first time. From then on, he'll be the controller... or turn into smoke, turn into an angel! But We're not going to keep you on your toes until then, oh, no, no, no. We're going to keep you on your toes. Now, here's how the game works. Every time I say 'Go', you guess who's got the switch. Guess By the way, I owe you a dessert; if you're wrong, you owe me a dessert. Go!" Soapy thought quickly, and said, "I want to be on my side." "Wrong." Jerry held up the scary box. "You owe me a dessert. It's berry pie tonight, and I'm drooling. But hurry up, decide quickly. Let's go!" "Still on your side!" "Yes, on my side. We're a tie. Go!" "your!" "No. Look, I can have your pie again. I should have stopped while I was ahead. Berry pie is my favorite! Go!" Jerry owed Soapy four days' worth of desserts when Marta came to change the guard. "We'll play with the score," said Jerry, "except for the berry tart, which I'll finish today. By the way, I forgot to tell you about the jackpot." "What prize?" "When it comes to actual combat, our bet is three desserts. After the fight, you can guess and win or lose. Of course, the stakes in actual combat are higher than now." Marta snorted and said, "Dude, are you trying to frighten him?" "Are you afraid, Soapy?" "No!" "Don't make a fuss, girl. Is your little dirty hand holding the switch firmly?" "Handover complete, sir." "Come on, Soapy, let's eat. Berry pie, ha ha ha!" Three days later it was even, but only because Soapy hadn't eaten the many desserts he had won.After that, the Sisu's speed slowed down a lot, almost down to the interplanetary speed, and the sun above Lothian was also impressively displayed on the screen.Soapy thought with some regret that the journey would not test his combat prowess. But at this moment, the alarm sounded.Soapy fastened his seat belt immediately.Jerry had been talking just now, and when he turned his head suddenly, his hands were already on the console. "Come on!" he yelled. "It's the real one this time." Soapy recovered from the shock and immediately threw himself over his console.The data has been delivered, and the ballistic trajectory has been slowly formed.Omg, so close!Syncing quickly!How did this thing fly to us unknowingly?Then, he stopped thinking and started looking for an answer... No, wait... It won't be long... Did the Corsair make a slight turn on impact, slowing its approach speed? ...assuming six g's for the turn...can the missile hit?If an enemy weapon could hit him, would he— He barely noticed Marta patting him on the shoulder, and then he heard Jerry yell, "Go away, girl! We've got it, we've got it!" The light on Soapy's dashboard flashed, and then the tweeter sounded: "It was a friendly spaceship just now, a friendly spaceship! It has been found out that it is a Rothian interplanetary patrol spaceship. The alarm is lifted, and the double-shift duty will continue .” Soapy took a deep breath, feeling a great weight lifted. "Keep going!" Jerry yelled at Soapy. "what?" "Finish your operation! That's not a Rothian ship, it's a looting ship! The Rothian ship doesn't fly like this! You've got your eye on it, my God, you've got your eye on it. Kill it!" Thorby heard Marta gasp in horror, but he had regained his focus.Has the situation changed?Can you hit this ship?Can you hit it at the bottom of the taper?Get started now!He activated the controller, leaving the launch to the computer. Jerry's voice came faintly in his ears.Jerry seemed to speak very slowly. "The missile went off. I think you hit it...but you were too impatient. Send it one more before their trance beam hits us." Soapy executed without thinking.Because the time was too short, he couldn't think of another way, so he ordered the machine to launch the second missile as planned.Then, he saw on the console, the target had lost power.Then a strange, empty feeling came over him.He knew that his first missile had destroyed the target. "Okay!" Jerry Yib said, "Go!" "what?" "Who hit it? You or me? Three desserts." "I hit it," said Thorby confidently.In another part of his consciousness, he knew he would never be a real businessman.For Jerry, the goal was nothing more than flaky, or three desserts. "Wrong. I added three more desserts. I didn't plant them for a while, so I controlled them myself. Of course, as soon as the captain spoke, the missiles were turned off and the launcher was locked... But I still didn't have the guts to let it go You are afraid of causing an accident with your friendly ship." "Friend ship?!" "Of course. But for you, Assistant Junior Fire Controller, this is your first real shot...and that's my intention." Soapy just felt light in his head.Marta said, "Dude, you cheated these three desserts, you cheated." "That's right. But he's a battle-baptized Controller now, so it's all the same thing; three desserts I'll keep away. Ice cream tonight."