Dool the Troubleshooter

I'd be happy to check the crawlspace for your hat, sir. Most items haven't ported more than ten meters.

 

“So you understand what you have to do?”

“Yes sir.”

“Repeat it for me so I know you know what to do.”

“Climb into the crawlspace and trace the power conduit for the Porter field.”

“And check every inch.”

“Every inch, yes sir.”

“I know how you Gefinel are, so don’t let yourself get bored or distracted, and don’t start assuming segments are fine.  I want you to visually check every inch, with your own, two, big, weird eyes.”

“I will sir.”

“I don’t need to tell what will happen if some vital piece of equipment gets teleported out of its rightful place.  Everyone on the ship could die.”

“I understand.”

“They’re all counting on us, Reln.”

“Its Dool, sir.”

“Right, well…  I realize you’ve only been on board for a few months, but you’re on the Porter team, now, son – we have pretty high expectations.  The last thing this ship needs is some bug-eyed, adolescent Gefinel, barely out of tech school, missing some minor disruption because he was busy daydreaming or something.”

“I won’t sir.”

“Good.  I’m trusting you with this, Dool, the whole ship is counting on us.”

“I understand, sir.  I’ll do my best, for the good of the ship and crew.”

“All right.  I’ll be working in the Porter field control room.  Let me know what you find.”

“Yes sir.”

“And don’t screw this up.”

“I won’t sir.”

Chief Bridger gave the slender Gefinel a final doubtful look, then turned his back and headed down the corridor.  Dool didn’t waste a moment getting started.  He climbed his stepladder, removed the access panel from the crawlspace, and crawled right in.  Although he found humans hard to understand, the importance of his task caused him to ignore his supervisor’s condescending behavior.  Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t have bothered him anyway.  Gefinel were colonial creatures, and as such, they put the needs of the community far beyond their own.  They were hard-working, honest, and obedient, and Dool knew that his feelings were irrelevant, especially when faced with their current crisis.

It only took a moment to locate the Porter field’s power conduit, nestled among the bundles of cables and wires.  Without hesitation, he began tracing the line towards the aft of the ship, inspecting every square inch dutifully.  He continued to think, of course, but his thoughts were not a bit distracting.  Dool remained completely focused on his task.  He wondered what kind of disruption in a power conduit could possibly cause the Porter field to randomly teleport small objects throughout the starship. 

He suspected that it was very unlikely he’d find the source of their problem up here in the crawlspace.  Most likely Chief Bridger was just being thorough, assigning the menial task to a low-level, alien technician like himself.  Nonetheless, if there were any disruptions, Dool would find it.  Gefinel were very dedicated workers.

He found it hard to understand why so many humans had the notion that his people were unintelligent and easily distracted.  Perhaps it was because they didn’t share the same preoccupation with entertainment and extra-curricular activities.  In the eyes of the human’s, this made them less interesting – too innocent even, and they seemed to equate innocence with stupidity.  Instead of having outside interests, the Gefinel practically existed to work, especially those like himself, of the aptly named ‘worker class’. 

The way he understood the arrangement, Gefinel matriarchs benefited from the human goods and services they received in exchange for the excess laborers they produced.  The humans benefited by getting cheap labor with a strong work ethic.  If this weren’t so, why did so many of his people end up serving the race of men?  If humans thought the Gefinel laborers were stupid and unreliable, why did they continue to trade for them?

Dool quieted his thoughts when he discovered a small patch of frayed fibers on the conduit’s fibrous casing.  This was, technically, a disruption, but nothing that would ever affect the Porter field’s function.  Still, though, it was obvious that he should fix it.  He sat on his haunches in the narrow crawlspace and brought out his little tool case, opening it in his lap.  He looked back at the conduit for a moment, to gauge what size patch he’d need, when he felt a peculiar, electrical, buzzing sensation on his thighs.  Snapping his gaze back downward, he was just in time to see his toolkit vanish in a burst of static.

“Hmmm… this will be a setback.”

Dool activated his wrist-computer.  “Level one tech, Marr Dool, access Porter field malfunction log.”

The ‘proceed’ indicator lit, and Dool logged his entry.  “1715 hours, one standard electrical toolkit ported from crawlspace above level three, aft of section beta.”

The ‘received’ indicator lit.  Dool thought for a moment, then spoke again to his wrist-computer.  “Level one tech, Marr Dool, query Porter field malfunction log.”

The ‘proceed’ indicator lit.  “Report number of toolkits ported since the beginning of Porter field malfunction.”

The answer appeared almost immediately.  Dool had to look closely to read the response on the wrist-computer’s miniscule screen – they were built mainly for technical input, not output.  He saw the English number, ‘2’.

‘How odd’, he thought ‘why would the Porter field latch on to so many personal items, and barely touch other equipment?  If it was truly random, it seems like more tools and other devices would be teleported.’

For the last two hours, countless articles of clothing and toiletry items had ported, but only a small percentage of non-vital equipment.  Chief Bridger insisted that it was an incredible coincidence, given what they knew of the machine and it’s function.  The Commander of the Watch suggested simply disabling the system until the problem could be corrected, which sounded good to Dool, but the Chief was hesitant.  He was the leading Porter field expert on the ship, and he felt strongly that tampering with any of its controls in any way could severely worsen the problem.  His only solution was to deal with it while it was merely affecting smaller, harmless items.  Thus the urgency.

While he continued to ponder the unusual glitch, Dool searched the crawlspace for his toolkit.  Most of the items hadn’t teleported more than ten meters, and so far, none had rematerialized beyond the ship’s hull or within another object.  There was a good chance that his toolkit was nearby, and a short search proved him right.  Crawling back past the open access panel to the crawlspace, Dool noticed the black case on the floor, near his stepladder.  He climbed down, retrieved it, and remounted his little ladder.

“Pardon me Jard, but have you seen my hat?”

Dool turned and saw that the speaker was a security officer.  He was ranked lieutenant, and his flat, round hat was indeed missing.  Many of the human crew members mocked and belittled the security officers because of their hats, and Dool wondered if he’d be better off without it.  “I’m Dool, sir.  Was your hat ported?”

“Yes, just a moment ago.”

“I haven’t seen it, but if I might ask, where were you when it happened?”

He pointed. “Just down there, walking the corridor, making my rounds.”

“I’d be happy to check the crawlspace for it, sir, most items haven’t ported more than ten meters.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

Dool climbed back up through the access panel, and made his way down the narrow, square tunnel.  Within only a few minutes, the beam of his headlight picked out the flat, cylindrical hat, lying right in the center of the crawlspace floor as if it had fallen there. He returned it to the security officer as quickly as he could, eager to get back to his assignment.

“Ah, thank-you… um, what was your name again?”

“Dool, sir.”

“Dool.  I appreciate this.”

“My pleasure, sir.”

As Dool made his way back to where he left off before his tool kit disappeared, he spoke into his wrist-computer once more.  “Level one tech, Marr Dool, query Porter field malfunction log.”

The ‘proceed’ indicator lit.  “Report number of hats ported since the beginning of Porter field malfunction.”

The answer was a surprising twenty-seven.

“Report number of blue security-officer hats ported since the beginning of Porter field malfunction.”

Twenty-five.

Dool wasn’t sure what this meant, if anything, but it was definitely strange.  He found his frayed casing then, and set to work patching it.  Afterwards, he continued to trace the conduit aft to the power plant, then forward to the Porter field control room.  He dutifully checked every square inch with his ‘own, two, big, weird eyes,’ like Chief Bridger had ordered, and found no other disruptions.  During the half-hour that it took to complete his task, Dool wondered a lot about what types of items had teleported, and when.  He suspected that seeing a complete log of Porter activity might be enlightening.  It wasn’t his place to go exceeding his orders and doing unauthorized computer searches, so he never really considered looking the information up.  Besides, the screen on his wrist-computer was so small that it wouldn’t be practical to try to read a list of what must be hundreds of items by now.  He decided to suggest it to the Chief when he met up with him in the control room.

Dool dropped out of the crawlspace, replaced the access panel, folded up his little stepladder, and made his way towards the Porter field control room to report to his supervisor.  After a brief walk through the corridor, he found himself within a throng of officers and technicians.  It was a little overwhelming.  All of them crowded around monitors inside the control room, barking orders, reporting findings, and shouting suggestions.  None of them paid him the slightest notice.  Dool sheepishly made his way around the different stations, searching for the chief, but he was nowhere to be found.  This left the young Gefinel in a conundrum.  His supervisor had specifically told him he would be in the control room, causing Dool to assume that he should report there when he finished his search.  Since Chief Bridger wasn’t around at the moment, Dool wasn’t sure what to do.  Should he wait here, hoping he’d be back shortly?  Or should he go and try to find him?

A hurrying officer suddenly jostled him.  “Move it, Ferg, can’t you see that I’m trying to get to that moniter?”

“It’s Dool sir, my apologies.”

“I don’t care who you are, just move.”

“Yes sir, sorry sir.”  Dool stepped aside, allowing the blustering man to pass.  After a second thought, he said, “Excuse me, Sir?”

The gray-haired man turned angrily, his face turning red.  “What is it?”

“I just need to report to somebody that I’ve traced the power umbilical all the way through the crawlspaces and found no disruptions of any consequence.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes sir.”

“That doesn’t concern me, Ferg, tell the Chief when he gets back.”  The officer turned his attention back to his monitor.

“It’s Dool, sir.”

The officer ignored him.  The young Gefinel watched his back for a moment, working at the keyboard beneath his precious monitor.  Dool felt no offense or anger, but he was simply baffled.  How does one being assume their needs and their intentions are so much more important than another’s?  What makes them treat others like their existence is inconsequential.  Weren’t they all members of the community?  Perhaps they all had differing roles, but weren’t they each important?  The welfare of the community was what mattered, not the ego of any of its single members.  Dool shook his head in confusion.  Just as he was about to turn, he noticed the officer doing something peculiar.  The gray-haired man looked all around suspiciously, as though ensuring no one was watching him.  He didn’t notice Dool, but when he seemed to be satisfied, the officer slipped a key out of his pocket, and stuck it into his monitor’s security lock.  He gave it a quick twist, then thrust it back into his pocket, checking again to be sure he hadn’t been seen.

Strange, Dool thought, perhaps I should mention this to the Chief also.

He wanted to report more than ever now, but he still had to decide if he was going to go look for his supervisor, or wait here.  After a brief inner argument, Dool settled on waiting.  More than likely, the chief would return the instant he left to go look for him, and he would waste even more time.  Being that the room was so crowded with so many more important crewmembers, Dool moved to a corner of the control room near the door.  Here he’d be out of everybody’s way, and catch his supervisor the moment he returned.  He noticed that the terminal here that monitored the Porter field’s maintenance schedule was unoccupied.  He also knew that none of the others were likely to need it during their more important work.

And suddenly he was presented with another conundrum.

He hadn’t been ordered to do any sort of investigating, but some nagging thought was telling him to access the logs.  He felt sure that a complete list of everything that had been ported would be very enlightening.  Perhaps other, more experienced technicians had already thought of this, but Dool didn’t feel right standing there uselessly in the midst of an emergency.  He should probably at least make an attempt to be productive, whether he’d been ordered to or not.

With that decided, Dool logged on to the system.  It only took a few moments to call up a complete log from the Porter field’s database, and he was rather surprised to find that over four-hundred objects had been so far affected.  He started at the first item which was, ironically, a security officer’s cap, and began to scroll down the list looking for patterns of any kind.  Right from the beginning, the types of items ported once again gave him a sure feeling that this glitch was not random.  Quite a bit of clothing had been teleported, including shoes, belts, hats, and undergarments, but almost no tools or equipment of any other kind had been affected.  There were a few non-vital devices ported, but it was a small minority.  Interestingly, a fair amount of currency and jewelry had also been teleported, but not enough to think that this was some sort of elaborate robbery.  Other things included personal grooming items, photographs, some various forms of entertainment media like movies, music and games, and even a few books.

Dool also kept an eye on the intervals between portings.  It seemed like roughly every twenty seconds or so, something new would port, but there were inexplicable variations.  Given his own admittedly limited experience with the Porter field, Dool suspected that if it were a glitch in the machine itself, the intervals would be more regular, more mechanical.  The fact that there were random variations almost looked like it was being controlled manually – as though someone would teleport an object, then take a few moments to decide what to port next.

Chief Bridger had discounted human involvement early on in the crisis.  Because of security firewalls and the complexity of what it would take to hijack the entire system, he claimed there was no way that any individual could be doing it manually.  Dool, on the other hand, was beginning to suspect that their resident Porter field expert was mistaken. 

Unexpectedly, a human hairbrush ported onto the console near his hand.

Wrinkling his small nose in distaste, Dool pushed the brush further from his hand and continued working.  His people were hairless.  He didn’t think human hair looked especially unattractive, but being from a bald, smooth-skinned race, loose hairs tended to give him a slight sense of revulsion.  The brush that had so abruptly appeared happened to be matted with thick black strands of it.

Dool shivered a little, and continued poring through the Porter field’s log.  Three quarters of the way through the record, the young Gefinel was interrupted by a strange sound.

“Pssst…”

He heard it again, then turned to look in the direction it seemed to be coming from.  He was rather surprised to see a human female, wrapped in a towel, leaning around the doorway, staring intently at him.  Because of the wet hair matted around her face, it took him a moment to recognize Lieutenant Jenkins.  “Can I help you ma’am?”

“Dool, have you seen a hairbrush?”  She whispered.

“Certainly ma’am, right here.”  Dool pointed at his console.

Her eyes darted up to the room full of male crewmembers.  They hadn’t noticed her yet, and she seemed reluctant to step fully into the room.

Having a dim understanding of her dilemma, Dool picked up the hairbrush by its handle, being careful to avoid any of the loose black strands.  He passed it to her, struggling to maintain a non-revulsed expression.

Her eyes shone with gratitude.  “Thank-you so much, Dool.”

“You’re most welcome ma’am.”

She hesitated, glancing back at the room full of men.

“Um… you haven’t seen any, well, ‘ladies undergarments’, have you?”

Dool was puzzled.  “I’m sorry ma’am, but I don’t think I’d recognize them if I did.”

“Well, they’re sort of… red, and silky… you know what, nevermind.  Thanks for the brush.”

“You’re welcome ma’am.  And I’ll keep watch for silky red undergarments.”

“Uh, okay, bye Dool.”  Lieutenant Jenkins disappeared.

Dool felt a little sorry for her.  Apparently the Porter field glitch had caught her at a somewhat vulnerable moment.  He had immense respect for the human woman.  He found her to be a competent officer and a respectable, even-handed leader, plus, he really appreciated the fact that she seemed to be the only human being that could distinguish him from the other Gefinel on board.  He’d heard other crew members talking about her and knew that they appreciated her also, but for a less noble reason. 

Except for the matriarch’s and their consorts, Gefinel were completely asexual beings, yet he was able to accept the fact that humans were not.  Their preoccupation with it seemed to be all too often excessive, and that’s what bothered Dool.  His human co-workers seemed to be especially interested in Lieutenant Jenkins for her physical attributes, but to Dool, she seemed overly thin and top-heavy.

With a final twinge of pity, the young Gefinel returned to his search.  Out of curiosity, he ran a side-query to discover how many hairbrushes had ported.  It turned out to be eleven.  Then he queried female undergarments, and was stunned by the results – one-hundred and twenty-two.  This was, by far, the item most teleported by the field glitch.  It seemed like an incredibly odd thing to port around the ship, but he knew that somehow, this bit of information would reveal the motives of whoever was behind this.

He scanned further into the complete log, anxious to get to the end and report his findings to somebody.  If Chief Bridger hadn’t returned by then, he’d find someone else to tell.  He suspected that even the officer who’d jostled him would be interested in his discovery.

Unexpectedly, Dool came across the entry that unraveled the entire mystery.  There were no portings between 1703, and 1715.  The very next item to be teleported was his toolkit.  He still didn’t completely understand the motive, but knew without a doubt who the perpetrator was.  He sat back stunned.

“I should have suspected this earlier.”

Dool hopped out of his chair, intent on finding on officer.  Before he had fully stood, he bumped into another body entering the control room.

It was the same security officer who’d lost his hat earlier.

“Oh, sir, am I glad to see you.”

“Uh, ‘Jool’, was it?”

“Dool.  But that’s not important.  I’ve just discovered who’s hacked into the Porter field’s computer system and has been causing the portings.”

“Really, who?”

“If you’ll follow me, I’ll explain on the way.”

 

 

 

When they entered Chief Bridger’s personal quarters, they found the man seated shirtless at his computer terminal.  Hanging from his hairy shoulders was one of the missing female undergarments – it was white and unclasped.

Piled on his bed were roughly one-hundred and twenty-one others.  On his desk across the room was a much smaller pile of currency, jewelry, photographs, and various forms of entertainment media like movies, music and games.  When the chief heard them come in, he sighed deeply, and pushed his chair back from the computer.  He looked calmly at the security officer and asked, “How did you catch me.”

The officer drew his sidearm, but pointed it at the ceiling.  “You were the one that insisted on leaving the Porter field system on-line during the crisis, and you publicly refused to consider that a hijacker might be involved – not to mention the fact that you were the only one with the skills to hack past the firewall and take control of the entire system.  None of that would have made you a serious suspect until this Gefinel searched the complete log of everything you’d ported and noticed a twelve-minute gap in the glitch.  He knew that you’d been with him during the bulk of that time.”

Bridger looked at Dool and sneered.  “Who ordered you to check the entire log, Reln?”

Dool felt a little nervous for a moment.  “It’s Dool, sir, and, I guess, no-one ordered me.  I simply felt that I should remain productive during the crisis, and took the initiative to look it over while I waited to report to you.”

Bridger looked disgusted.  “You took initiative?  A Gefinel?  Taking Initiative?  Unbelievable.”

He snorted and shook his head in contempt.  “You know my plan was to quit in a little while and claim that I solved the problem.  I’d have been a hero, and I’d have probably gotten that promotion to maintenance chief that I’ve been waiting five years for.”

Dool was still confused.  “So that’s why you did all this?”

The security officer laughed.  “Yeah, that, and….” He pointed at the pile of undergarments on the bed.

“I don’t understand…”

“All right, chief, on your feet.”  He pointed his sidearm at the hairy, shirtless man.

“But wait,” Dool protested, “do you mean…”

Bridger rose slowly and removed the white undergarment from his shoulders.  Then he strolled casually across his room, looking straight ahead.

“Sir, I’m not sure I’m understanding…”

The security officer turned to follow his prisoner.  With another chuckle, he motioned once again at the bed.  “That’s the main reason right there, Nool.  He wanted them.”

The young Gefinel blinked in confusion at their retreating backs.  He’d never been more confused by humans as he was at this moment.

“It’s Dool, sir.”