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planet.
Just
a second, though. She
narrowed her eyes as something half-shadowed at the base of the medicare master unit caught her attention. Even someone
seriously enough injured to require hundred percent life-support of the
quality available here was entitled to compulsory repatriation—Abdul Gamaliel Higgins versus the Systemwide Communications Company, 2018: "An individual legally alive in respect of
the Celestial Bodies Occupancy Act is legally alive in respect of any other
contract or obligation whatsover ." That had been an interesting case—the only one on the galactic
statute book where the proxies who had fought the case had been held unable to
benefit from the success of it.
In short: you cant have it both ways.
But
the Zygra Company seemed determined to do so. There
was something at the very back of this medicare unit
which she didn't think belonged. Cautiously she fetched a circuit-tracer and began to work out what it was. Before touching anything,
of course, she spoke to the impersonal recorders monitoring her every movement.
"I suspect a malfunction in
part of the automatic equipment and propose to verify the suspicion . ' Inspection for the purpose of verification or repair of
non-manually operated equipment does not constitute sabotage'—the Lyon et Marseilles Freight Company versus Adolphe ben Hossein , 1992!"
When
she finally did discover the purpose of the mysterious addition to the
cabinet, she was shaking with fury. It was nothing more than a self-fatiguing
resonator plate, attached as one of the seals on the piping from the plasma
store, far below in the station's bowels, to the life-supporting prosthetics
here. To what signal it was sensitive she couldn't be sure, but she suspected
it would resonate to the frequencies generated as Zygra One boomed down to land on the station's steel deck. Broken, it would admit
air to the pipe, and—that would be the end of the supervisor, and of the
company's worry about the cost of repatriation. "In the event of an
employee's decease, funerary arrangements shall be undertaken in accordance
with custom at his place of origin; next of kin may exercise right of
repatriation but the company shall be at liberty to stow the remains in an
unpressurized hold." That was a very recent decision: Relict of Arthur
Wong versus Universal Exploitation, 2176.
Of
course, the fractured plate would have been replaced with a sound one
automatically before the starship's crew emerged to find the body ....
For
a little while after that she was cast into despair again. There was something
fiendishly subtle about a trap so simple yet so nearly infallible—how could she
ever hope to match the deviousness of the minds who had conceived it?
Yet
as she proceeded with her survey her spirits lightened anew. The Zygra Company's planners had themselves been victims of
circumstance. Developing new planets at high pressure—in her earlier image,
homesteading half a continent with scrap equipment—led to a particular attitude
of mind. The ideal aimed at was "turn her on and let her run," and
the more successful the outworlders had grown at
achieving high reliability, the less they had worried about modifications and improvements.
They had started, right back in the early days of colonization, from a given basis of technical
knowledge. They had been too busy applying what they'd already known to undertake
much original research; their genius-level breakthroughs had been on the
practical, not the theoretical, level. Inspired corner-cutting was no
substitute for Earthside -style exhaustive testing.
Earth had the manpower to waste on minor changes for the sake of closer
tolerances, a one percent improvement in energy consumption, or even for change's own sake. Fashion was a powerful force at home, but its
return was still a novelty among the outworlders .
Consequently, when Kynance came to look over the machinery running Zygra , she
was struck by an aura of obsolescence. It was by far the
Just
a second, though. She
narrowed her eyes as something half-shadowed at the base of the medicare master unit caught her attention. Even someone
seriously enough injured to require hundred percent life-support of the
quality available here was entitled to compulsory repatriation—Abdul Gamaliel Higgins versus the Systemwide Communications Company, 2018: "An individual legally alive in respect of
the Celestial Bodies Occupancy Act is legally alive in respect of any other
contract or obligation whatsover ." That had been an interesting case—the only one on the galactic
statute book where the proxies who had fought the case had been held unable to
benefit from the success of it.
In short: you cant have it both ways.
But
the Zygra Company seemed determined to do so. There
was something at the very back of this medicare unit
which she didn't think belonged. Cautiously she fetched a circuit-tracer and began to work out what it was. Before touching anything,
of course, she spoke to the impersonal recorders monitoring her every movement.
"I suspect a malfunction in
part of the automatic equipment and propose to verify the suspicion . ' Inspection for the purpose of verification or repair of
non-manually operated equipment does not constitute sabotage'—the Lyon et Marseilles Freight Company versus Adolphe ben Hossein , 1992!"
When
she finally did discover the purpose of the mysterious addition to the
cabinet, she was shaking with fury. It was nothing more than a self-fatiguing
resonator plate, attached as one of the seals on the piping from the plasma
store, far below in the station's bowels, to the life-supporting prosthetics
here. To what signal it was sensitive she couldn't be sure, but she suspected
it would resonate to the frequencies generated as Zygra One boomed down to land on the station's steel deck. Broken, it would admit
air to the pipe, and—that would be the end of the supervisor, and of the
company's worry about the cost of repatriation. "In the event of an
employee's decease, funerary arrangements shall be undertaken in accordance
with custom at his place of origin; next of kin may exercise right of
repatriation but the company shall be at liberty to stow the remains in an
unpressurized hold." That was a very recent decision: Relict of Arthur
Wong versus Universal Exploitation, 2176.
Of
course, the fractured plate would have been replaced with a sound one
automatically before the starship's crew emerged to find the body ....
For
a little while after that she was cast into despair again. There was something
fiendishly subtle about a trap so simple yet so nearly infallible—how could she
ever hope to match the deviousness of the minds who had conceived it?
Yet
as she proceeded with her survey her spirits lightened anew. The Zygra Company's planners had themselves been victims of
circumstance. Developing new planets at high pressure—in her earlier image,
homesteading half a continent with scrap equipment—led to a particular attitude
of mind. The ideal aimed at was "turn her on and let her run," and
the more successful the outworlders had grown at
achieving high reliability, the less they had worried about modifications and improvements.
They had started, right back in the early days of colonization, from a given basis of technical
knowledge. They had been too busy applying what they'd already known to undertake
much original research; their genius-level breakthroughs had been on the
practical, not the theoretical, level. Inspired corner-cutting was no
substitute for Earthside -style exhaustive testing.
Earth had the manpower to waste on minor changes for the sake of closer
tolerances, a one percent improvement in energy consumption, or even for change's own sake. Fashion was a powerful force at home, but its
return was still a novelty among the outworlders .
Consequently, when Kynance came to look over the machinery running Zygra , she
was struck by an aura of obsolescence. It was by far the
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