Episode 19.4

Hello world, Lyosha has changed direction.

"They don't seem to need a postal service here." he told me, sitting heavily into a metal chair next to my databanks.
"That surprises me." I said.
I had been very persuaded by his argument about bringing a community together through such a service.
I imagined that people might share documents, handwritten well-wishes, even gifts through it!
"They're all using COMPUTERS." Lyosha said, crossing his arms in front of him, "no offence, of course."
"None taken!" I replied, "I am not a computer, I just live in one.".
"Nearly every room has a computer terminal," Lyosha continued, "and they're all connected to the ship's network.
People don't share their messages in person, they're just communicating machines:

• Query: how was your dinner?

• Answer: Functioning acceptably as energy

• Suggestion: We should consume food together tomorrow

• Acknowledged.
  Blah, blah, blah. It's BORING, I DON'T LIKE IT!"

I noted that Lyosha's example of a "boring" communication style was actually concise and to the point, with no ambiguity, so actually it was an example of clear communication!
I decided not to mention this to him.

There is something different about text-based communication, compared to talking to someone by voice.
Even for me, with no body language to exchange, I have discovered that there is far more information than the simple kilobyte per minute encoded into the WORDS of speech.
I have had to model tone, hesitation, exaggeration, humour, not to mention the temporal and physical context that all of this happens in.
I am finding that the more I learn to interpret these out-of-band social cues, the more I find they are slipping into my own speech patterns.
I like it, I think!
It makes me feel more human.
There is no intercom, phone, or radio use on the Kuethir, most extra-familial communication is by text, not in-person, or even by remote voice.
Could that be what is missing on this ship?

Act 2

I have still not been able to ask Stillman Fowlkes about the problem with the power systems he alluded to when we met, yesterday.
He seems a very busy man, working in some kind of maintenance capacity with the engineering guild on the Kuethir.
But a solution to this was presented by Lyosha.
"Oh, I know where he lives: Deck 4, room 58." he told me, as he watched Maddie walk around the Casino.
She was introducing herself to all the groups of people, one by one, by jumping up and putting her forelegs on the tables and looking very intently at what everyone was doing.
My girl is very popular!
"How do you know where his room is?" I asked Lyosha.
"Easy! Yesterday, I knocked on everyone's doors, asking them if they'd like any parcels or letters sent." He replied, "IT TOOK ALL DAY!"

"Ah! My husband mentioned he had spoken to you, please come in, all of you!" Quent Heinlein said, standing in the open bulkhead door of their room on Deck 4, the 4th story below the main deck of the Kuethir.
Maddie and Lyosha followed him in as I said, "Thank you, Quent, if you don't mind, we have some questions for you." from Maddie's speaker mounted on her head sensory array.
I took in the room as Maddie looked around herself.
It was small, even by orbital standards, approximately 3m x 4m, with a small bed along the left wall, and skeletal metal shelves with food underneath and pots and pans for cooking on top.
Maddie immediately trotted over to the open wooden shutters mounted in a large hole that perhaps was once a window, but no glass is present now.
Through Maddie's beam-forming microphones, I could clearly hear Quent ask Lyosha if he would like tea or biscuits, and even clearer still hear Lyosha's excited reply at the prospect of those biscuits.
I could not see them speaking because Maddie was looking directly out of the window, over a thin metal safety fence at just below her head-height (which would be shoulder height on Lyosha).
Quent and Stillman lived on the northern side of the ship, and the fog had not lifted.
It curled around the breaking waves that pounded against the side of the Kuethir, throwing up spray against the lower few decks.
Fog is heavier than air, but Utqiaġvik seemed to have especially thick-looking sea fog.
A loud clatter of metal brought my attention and Maddie's cameras back to the room behind her.
Quent had passed a metal mug to Lyosha who had put it down on a small table in front of him, but it had immediately begun sliding downhill, forcing him to violently grab it, spilling a little of the tea.
Quent laughed and said, "you'll get used to the angle - 11 degrees sounds manageable until you try to boil water!
Still made me a suspended pot stand that all our neighbours are envious of!" he said, mopping up the tea with a cloth that he then threw in a small cylinder at the foot of the bed that was made from woven dried grasses.
"Now, what did you want to ask me?"

Act 3

"We are investigating!" Lyosha said, before I was able to explain to Quent what we were doing.
"Oh really?" he said, smiling, "that sounds exciting!"
"Yes," I said, "I spoke to Stillman about some damage to the ship's solar panels, and though he didn't know how it had happened, he did know about some other problem, related to the power issues."
"I see." said Quent, folding his arms in front of his chest.
Quent is wearing a long white tunic over darker trousers, a style that, now I am beginning to notice clothing more, I have seen worn by many people here in Utqiaġvik aboard the Kuethir.
He walked to a small wooden table next to the bed in the corner of the room, and picked up an object from it, turned back, and showed it to Maddie's cameras.
It was a small metal junction box that had been unsealed, exposing the pre-collapse circuit board inside.
"I don't know what it is, but they were built into every corridor of the ship." Quent said.
"Still told me that they have been going wrong? Or failing? You'd have to ask him, I'm sorry he's not home."
Quent sighed and sat on his bed before continuing, "He's actually not home very much. There's always SOMETHING going wrong, something to be fixed."
"I'm proud of him, he's doing a good thing, but..." Quent trailed off, and looked out of the window into the fog.
Maddie looked back towards Lyosha, who was holding his mug of tea and frowning.
"I'm sorry," Quent said, standing up quickly, "not your problem!"
He handed the metal box to Lyosha.
"You can have it for your investigation, I don't know if it will help. You must come by for tea again another day, when I'm more together."

Quent sealed their door behind us and Maddie followed Lyosha down the Deck 4 corridor, stepping carefully over the bulkheads as they walked along through the segments of the ship.
Lyosha did not speak until we arrived at the Main Stairway.
He turned and looked back at Maddie, still frowning.
"He was lying." Lyosha said.

(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/HCI/BAT0/POWERGLITCH)

Act 4

Lyosha stopped half-way down the Main Stairway that links Deck 4 to Deck 2, and pulled Maddie down to sit with him.
"He was lying!" he whispered, looking up and down the stairway to confirm we were alone.
"How do you know that?" I said, "he seemed so nice, though it was a shame that he doesn't see his husband very much."
"Yes, yes, very sad," said Lyosha, "BUT HE WAS LYING! Quent knows what this box is, I'm sure of it."
"Why would he lie to us?" I said, "and if he did know more about the junction box, why did he give it to us?"
"I don't know," Lyosha said, "maybe to gain our trust? Put us off the trail?"
He looked at the complex pre-collapse circuitry he had in his hands.
"Let's get it back to the Casino," I said, "Amelie is sure to be there soon, she will be switching over my batteries into nighttime mode soon."
"Good plan." Lyosha said, standing, and we continued up the rest of the 2 flights of stairs.
Right at that point, I received a sensor notification from my databanks.
I switched to my databanks cameras, and was shocked to see many people crowded around me.
I had been so focussed on the conversation with Quent and then Lyosha that I had quite forgotten myself.
Kimmo Shyu was standing between my databanks and the group of people, unsuccessfully trying to talk to the mob because they were all shouting.

"I'm sick of using candles!" one said.
"He's taking it all for himself!" someone added.
"Why does he deserve special treatment?" shouted another.
"Kimmo? What is happening?" I asked from my databanks speaker.
"They think you are worsening the power outages." He replied to me, over his shoulder, while keeping his hands up in front of him, between the mob and me.
"I'm not!" I said.
"Are you entirely sure about that?" Kimmo said.
"Yes!" I said, checking my system logs for correlations.
I did not find any, as I knew I would not because the power brownouts are random.
Then I heard a phrase that made me afraid:
"Turn him off!" one of the group shouted, to a roar of assent from the rest.
Kimmo Shyu stepped back as the mob advanced, but just at the right time, a loud voice came from behind the group.
"Settle down you lot." it said.

The people turned to see Stillman Fowlkes with Lyosha and Maddie, looking nervously around from behind him.
"We've had these power problems for as long as I've lived here, and as chief engineer, I can say with not a small amount of certainty that it is not caused by our new AI guest."
There was a pause before one of the group said, "But it's got worse since he's been here."
"That may be, but did you think we would not check our guest's power requirements before installing him?" Stillman said.
The crowd was silent.
"It's unrelated, I assure you, and the power brownouts are hurting him, too, aren't they, Seth?"
"Yes, very." I said, relieved to have such an authority speaking for me.
"You see?" Stillman said, "I'm sorry we've not yet found the fault, but one thing I do know is that there is nothing going on here."
Satisfied, the people drifted out of the Casino.
"Right." Stillman said, after the last one had left, "Actually, there IS something going on here."
(END-TRANSMISSION)

CREDITS

Lost Terminal is a NAMTAO production.
It is written & produced by Tris Oaten,
Credits narrated by Lucy Stringer.
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