Starship Armstrong - Season 2

Part 36 - Ignorance Is Bliss (X)

The Captain stood on the bridge, agitated.

"What do you have to report?" she asked the face of Dr. Kang on the main screen.

"The space station is a chimera of three different Imperial standard orbital colonies, and the guts of at least one spaceship," said Dr. Kang "Most of the systems are functioning as well as can be expected but the M/A reactor is leaking antimatter hyperspatially."

"What?" demanded the Captain.

"It looks like an Imperial safety measure actually functioned as designed for once," said Dr. Kang, smiling coyly at his own joke "Local infraspace is probably going to be dangerous for a little while, though. I would advise against engaging the relativity drive anywhere within the gravity well of Zethes."

"How will this affect the Zethite simulation?" asked the Captain.

"It won't affect it at all until the antimatter finishes venting," explained Dr. Kang "Then it will suddenly end when the power cuts out. This will take out life-support too so they won't have long to worry about it when it happens."

"Can you fix it?" asked the Captain.

"The containment field is compromised and there's no way of telling how while it's active. If I turn it off before the antimatter is finished venting it's going to react with all the regular matter and blow us all to kingdom come," said Dr. Kang "The best I could do would be restart the reactor with a fresh supply of antimatter, which I do not have, but not until the venting procedure is finished."

"What if we supplied the Zethites with some of the antimatter from our own reactor?" offered Littlecrow.

"Do you want to build the Zethites a matter/antimatter reactor or do you want to help them extend their vacation from reality?" asked Kang "Because their computer system needs a constant supply of energy. In the time between when the reactor finished venting and restarting the reaction the simulation would end."

"So you're saying there's nothing you can do?" asked the Captain "That's very unlike you, Doctor."

"Entropy, Captain," said Dr. Kang "My one true rival."

"I want your team to stay over there and keep trying," said Littlecrow.

"I'll let McAfree know," said Dr. Kang "She'll be thrilled."

"I also need to know if you can reinsert Galen into the simulation?"

"Reinsert him?" asked Dr. Kang, incredulous "Of course I can. What kind of question is that? How do you think you got into that simulation to pull him out in the first place."

"I don't mean temporarily," said the Captain "I mean permanently."

"Yes!" said Dr. Kang, still incensed "Did you really think there was something that a bunch of lost worlders using cobbled together Imperial tech could accomplish that I couldn't? Ha! I'll do you one better! If he's so upset by the light outside the cave I can put him back sans all his recent memories."

"What?" demanded the Captain, for the second time in the conversation.

"Oh yeah," McAfree said, as she walked into view "I don't want to send anyone into an existential crisis or anything but Doc can erase memories."

"I don't even want to contemplate the implications of that," said Mitzner.

"The machine I need to do it is on the Armstrong, but it could easily be transported here. I could erase everything in the man's brain prior to being pulled out of Narnia."

"Don't get ahead of yourself," said the Captain "Just start making preparations to reinsert Professor Myron. That might not even be necessary anymore given the state of the reactor. I'll get back to you once I've run all this past the Professor."

"As you say," said Dr. Kang "End transmission."

He was gone from the screen in an instant.

* * *

"You just got baited by the Captain," laughed McAfree.

"I did nothing of the sort," said Dr. Kang.

"Okay well you told her about the engram scribbler just so she wouldn't unflatteringly compare you to the ostriches. She's got to be over there high-fiving Mitzner about it right now."

"This is exactly the kind of field test that the engram scribe needs," said Dr. Kang.

"Oh yeah," said McAfree, rolling her eyes at him "Good save."