[Project Boussh] Surprise!!!
Zeynep Dilli / 'Morwen'
Apologies for getting this in late--although, considering where I
am, better late than never. The time is right after Kristy's
"Retrospective", when they come to pick me up en route to New
Hampshire and catch me by surprise.
Work of love, no financial gain, etc.; also, no slighting intended
against Office of Information Technology in the University of
Maryland, College Park. I needed a plot device.
****************************************************************
It was like a replay of the scene in November, Kristy thought,
except she was looking at the clearing from within the _Pulsar
Skate_ now, and there was only one X-Wing accompanying the
freighter. Another--important--difference was that the clearing was
completely covered with snow. The late snowfalls of the previous
day hadn't had much incentive to melt up to that night.
As Mirax skillfully lowered her old friend to rest on the snows,
Kristy somewhat uneasily thought of the marks they were making on
the snow and the amount they'd melt when they were taking off. She
hoped the rest of the snow would melt itself soon.
As the dark-haired women were unstrapping themselves from the
cockpit seats, Winter appeared noiselessly in the doorway. She was
carrying a knapsack slung on one heavily-clad shoulder. "I'll take
this to him," she said, "you've got everything, Kristy?"
Kristy nodded. "All in here," she said, picking up her heavy
winter jacket from the floor next to the seat. Shrugging the jacket
on and thanking Mirax for letting her watch the descent from the
cockpit, she followed after the Alderaanian. "Let's make sure he's
got everything, too," the white-haired woman added on their way to
the hatch.
Kristy smiled internally at Winter's choice of words. "Make sure
he's got everything" not only meant physical things like money and
warm clothing; she was also to make sure that he understood
directions and what he was to do. One might think that that was
needless worrying when the "he" in question was Tycho Celchu, but if
there was someone that would worry, it would be Winter. A remark
attributed to Iella was fresh in the young biochemist's mind--"Isn't
that what husbands are for, to prepare you for your children?"--and
the logical corollary was that your husband _was_ your first child.
Kristy had heard other tales to that effect, too...
Her first step into the clearing did not sink ankle-deep into the
snow as she had half-feared it would. Instead, the snow cover was
crunchy at the top, powdery underneath and, at most, half an inch
thick. She smiled ruefully at herself as she realized she'd been
thinking in Idaho terms when she thought of a snowfall; but this was
Maryland. It _did_ get heavy snows, if you listened to Morwen, but
apparently even those went away within a week. And this, evidently,
hadn't been heavy. The rueful smile turned sarcastic. _I'm not sure
that you can even call this snow. It's a heavy frost._
The X-Wing was already powered down and the pilot walking towards
them as they emerged from the _Pulsar Skate_. Greeting them with a
nod, he took the knapsack from Winter, pressing his hand to hers for
a second. Then he stopped, strangely hesitant.
"Um," he said, "is it all right if I changed in the _Skate_? That
place where we changed last time... that abandoned--fueling
station?-- will likely be... cold."
Kristy, caught up with a bout of giggling, had to leave the nod of
assent to Winter.
********
The taxi driver was different, but he was just as spooked as the
previous one to pick up a couple from the middle of nowhere. The
destination, the large campus of University of Maryland, seemed to
mollify him, however.
"Are you sure she will still be working?" Tycho asked his
companion, "it's almost midnight."
"If she isn't we can always walk to her place," Kristy replied,
"but chances are she will be at the lab. It's not even midnight
yet. And the latest I heard from her, her schedule isn't relaxed
since she returned from Turkey."
Tycho couldn't help wondering about such a life that meant harder
work afterwards if you took a break, and, if you listened to Kristy,
that did not lend itself to concepts like regular hours or even
being paid according to your hours.
Come to think of it, it sounded a lot like the schedules of a
Rebel pilot.
_Weird or not, she must be enjoying it, no point her continuing
like that otherwise._
It took sacrifices, though. Like her inability to join in the
search for Quiara actively up to now. Although she had provided
valuable intelligence at the initial parts of the search, planned
his and Wedge's insertion to Earth, and had, on the side, been
working for data-sifting programs of her own to complement Piggy's,
her contributions had been minor.
That was about to change. Things were coming to a head, and they
needed everyone they could get their hands on--including this young
engineer, who, if you listened to Kristy, had some sideline talents
that could be useful in a field situation.
He shook out of his thoughts as Kristy directed the cab to turn
into the parking lot in front of a stocky, dark building.
*******************
_Will this ever converge?_
....
switch to Matrix method
inner_gum_loop=3, phi_er=3.149e-05, psin_er=2.817e-05,
psip_er=3.561e-05
phi=1.992e+00 1.992e+00, psin=4.187e-01 4.186e-01, psip=3.560e+00
3.560e+00
iphi=(40), ipsin=(38), ipsip=(42)
xphi=(12.32), xpsin=(11.7), xpsip=(12.94)
inner_gum_loop=4, phi_er=1.287e-09, psin_er=2.983e-09,
psip_er=9.537e-10
phi=2.525e+00 2.525e+00, psin=9.626e-01 9.626e-01, psip=3.740e+00
3.740e+00
iphi=(249), ipsin=(249), ipsip=(65)
xphi=(76.69), xpsin=(76.69), xpsip=(20.02)
VL= 0 (V) VR= 4.12 (V)IDS_L=-7.251891e+01
(A) IDS_R=-7.251891e+01 (A)
VL= 0 (V) VR= 4.12 (V)IDS_TL=0.000000e+00
(A) IDS_TR=5.092808e-313 (A)
time= 608 (sec) 10.1 (min), pass= 0 (sec)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
**** VL= 0 VR= 4.12 ****
**** pass setboundary ****
**** pass initial ****
**** pass DD initial ****
inner_gum_loop=1, phi_er=1.753e-08, psin_er=4.282e-04,
psip_er=1.716e-03
phi=2.525e+00 2.525e+00, psin=9.630e-01 9.626e-01, psip=3.175e+00
3.173e+00
iphi=(249), ipsin=(249), ipsip=(4)
xphi=(76.69), xpsin----
_Knock, knock_.
Morwen jumped two feet into the air. She'd almost lost herself in
watching the data of a simulation run streaming on one of her
terminals. She was alone in the lab, and had shut the door in case
someone else working on the same floor--quite likely there were
some--would be disturbed by the Mozart she was listening to.
Whoever else could be there, though, she was _expecting_ no one.
"Come in?" she called, turning away from the monitor and putting
her feet down, ready to get up.
Her eyes grew and her back tightened like one of the piano strings
as Tycho Celchu walked in.
The D-major Rondo ended, giving way to the A-minor Rondo.
Tycho just stood there smiling.
"What... why..." She shook her head, and started over, with a more
basic question. "Are you alone?"
***************
The burst of laughter from the corridor made it unnecessary for
Tycho to answer.
"I knew she'd be like a rabbit in headlights," Kristy snickered as
she walked in from behind the pilot.
"Rabbit in headlights?" Tycho asked. _So many unfamiliar
expressions, still._
Morwen was staring at Kristy, her expression wavering between joy
and exasperation. "They look exactly like how I just looked," she
explained as she slowly got up.
She abruptly lunged for Kristy. The speed and suddenness of the
movement hit the defense reflex triggers in Tycho and he moved
forward--
--and stopped himself just in time from tackling Morwen as she
avenged the surprise by hugging Kristy within an inch of her life.
_Side talents, eh? That was like the... cat that I saw in
Kristy's place. I wonder if she's got any fighting training?_
The question was answered when they sat down to business. Morwen,
naturally enough, first wanted to know why they were there. When she
heard that they had come to drag her, if necessary, kicking and
screaming from the lab to the meeting cabin in New Hampshire, her face
grew serious.
"I have been left behind, I know, but I didn't know _this_
behind," she said quietly, "We already have a lot of people in
this. Why do you need one more, all of a sudden?"
"You haven't been following the turn of events?" said Tycho,
realizing, for the first time, that their present quarry might be
more out of it than he had realized.
"I've been following all that I've received," Morwen said, turning
to the computer.
Her hands flew over the keyboard and in short order, a window next
to another full of streaming numbers was showing a list of Boussh
progress reports.
A strangely truncated list.
"You've deleted those you read?" Kristy asked, sounding perplexed.
The engineer's dark head snapped around. "No, I've kept all..."
Her eyes flew wide open and she spun back to open another program
that Tycho recognized, from their previous stay, as a "browser".
She pointed the browser to where Kristy kept a listing of the
accounts, staring in dismay at the full listing.
"How could I have been so foolish? I thought I haven't been
getting much stuff lately because people have been quiet. Since my
newsfeed of AFW was OK, I just thought there wasn't much going on
with the search..." She was, Tycho saw, truly bitter at herself.
He put a hand on her shoulder. "We will bring you up to date
anyway," he said, "and you are needed. As are everyone else we can
get our hands on."
She turned to look at him, and he saw that the bitterness was
replaced with yet something else. The thick, dark brows were knit.
"I don't get it," she said, "I got tons of stuff from AFW. But very
few of the Boussh-threads. It is almost as if... someone has
killfiled that thread, except pine doesn't have a killfile. As if
someone has removed the thread from our newsserver." She bit her
lips. "Of course, had I just doublechecked with another newsserver,
or even with the archive, I'd have seen something was amiss. But I
didn't, and that's my folly--"
"--but that's past now--" Tycho interjected--
"But that's past now," Kristy said at the same time--
"--but that's past now," she continued, uninterrupted. Then she
stopped suddenly and stared at Kristy, then from her to Tycho,
looking, for lack of a better word, poleaxed. She shook her head
and continued, looking slightly incredulous still.
"What's important is, I'm, well, nobody. Why would someone try to
block my access to Boussh material?" She turned back to the list of
those accounts that had reached her. "It wasn't a blanket blocking,
you see. Whoever did that let carefully selected accounts go
through, sporadic enough and those not really referring to each
other, so that I wouldn't be aware of continuity errors that much.
It isn't an automatic thing, someone is doing it."
Tycho paused, confused. _Why, indeed?_
"Maybe someone started this while it seemed like you, or the
Ladies of Intelligence," Morwen smiled softly, "would be staying and
working from here. To confuse matters. Still, that isn't really a
good way. We could still double check with other servers, and there
would be e-mails... but maybe they thought it would be
troublesome. Anyway, you moved away, but either they missed
that--criminal negligence on their part--or didn't bother to order
whoever is doing this to stop."
"And who do you think?" Kristy asked.
"Easiest answer is someone in the Office of Information Technology,
bribed or otherwise coerced," Morwen said dismissively, "but we can go
bonkers trying to find who--OIT isn't communicative even when it comes
to tech support, and you never can reach anyone who doesn't answer a
phone--and I don't think it's really important anyway. There are more
important stuff now. Why don't you bring me up to date while I--"
The computer beeped.
Tycho turned to see the stream of numbers had stopped.
"It converged?!" Morwen said in a voice between extreme happiness
and extreme surprise, and for the next minute or so, she was in a
flurry of typing activity that made it seem like she'd forgotten all
about the others in the room.
The result of the activity seemed insignificant by comparison to
the animation preceeding it. A single line graph appearing in the
middle of the screen. A slim curve flaring upward after about the
midpoint of the horizontal axis.
Morwen took a very deep breath, exhaled loudly, and leaned against
the back of her chair.
"Is that good?" Tycho ventured.
She smiled a satisfied smile. "Yes. It's actually good enough
that, after I get some more data and write a report, you won't even
have to drag me out of the lab. This concludes a major step of my
current project, I can take a break and come with you after leaving
a report and a note."
*********************
The report was composed with a speed that would have made Kristy
concerned about its quality, except Morwen seemed used to the task.
She could even keep up a slightly broken chat with them, when Tycho had
questioned her about whether she'd had any martial arts training.
That had surprised Kristy, until he revealed what prompted him to ask.
The "cat" comparison made them laugh; Morwen then explained that while
other people also had also seen that similarity, the quick movements
actually came from constant practice of dancing and motion rather than
martial arts training.
The cab they'd taken after picking up a backpack for Morwen from
her place transported them speedily through deserted roads to their
destination, and left with obvious hurry.
Kristy smiled inwardly, thinking of whether they would have
started a new urban legend among cab drivers with these late-night
excursions into apparent desolation. The amusement faded, however,
as she considered what they faced now and the added complexities of
whoever had been messing with Morwen's newsfeed for whatever reason.
They had some ways to go yet.
Nonetheless, she returned her friend's smile as their eyes met,
and the two women led Tycho back towards the clearing as dawn was
silvering the eastern horizon...
--
Zeynep Dilli/Morwen
**** Always looking to the future...
**** Antilles/Celchu'04
-----BEGIN AFW GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
GTC/WA/CH d--(+) s: a22 b+>++ c- t++(+) TAWG++ WR++ DR--- C+++
WEB++ QX--(-) KD--- BF-- LC+ LS+ /---(--) AFW+++ h* x?
-----END AFW GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Brad Carletti
>or even with the archive, I'd have seen something was amiss. But I
>didn't, and that's my folly--"
Oh yeah, DEJA! Thanks for the reminder :)
--
Brad Carletti
FREE JEFF K! FREE JEFF K DAMN YOU!
(http://somethingawful.efront.com/jeffk/)
Nick Coghlan
Now here's a challenge - what is this all about?:
Going by the initial conditions, it's at least partially an analysis of
an inductive circuit - initial inductor voltage 0, initial resistor
voltage 4.12. (I'd hazard a guess it was feeding the best guess of the
previous run back through as the starting conditions for the next).
Aside from that though...
phi, psi_n, psi_p: phi is usually phase, but these seem to be complex
numbers...
_er: presumably the error signals you are trying to get within
tolerance.
i(), x(): functions of the above that are probably useful in figuring
out:
The initial and final inductor & resistor currents.
*shrug* so how wrong am I? (Assuming Morwen actually copied a real
screen dump!)
Cheers,
Nick.
Greek variables are over-rated...
--
===========================================================
Nick Coghlan | Brisbane, Australia
ICQ#: 68854767 | ncog...@email.com
Mobile: 0409 573 268 | http://oneofthesedays.not.there
"It is better to deserve honours and not have
them, than to have them and not deserve them" -Mark Twain-
===========================================================
scifantasy
di...@wam.umd.edu wrote:
Recieved.
--scifantasy
"RTF*"
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Majick
> Cheers,
> Nick.
> Greek variables are over-rated...
Just remove the 'r', me thinks...