The Delicate Crunch of Marshmallows

“No,” Raul replied, “but a lot of projects are, while the people working on them are off handling some other crisis. Anyway, they came up with a system called PERT charting, and we still use something very much like it today.”

“Sounds marvelous.” Erica stared at the screen dubiously. “I’d like to think a computer program can solve all our problems.”

Raul struck two more keys and a graph appeared on the screen. It was low on the left, increased gradually for a while, then turned sharply up on the right and went nearly vertical. “Well, it won’t always solve them, but it can sure help you spot them. The flow-chart I just showed you was our original work-plan. It is, of course, quite obsolete. I’ve been trying to keep up with the organization and milestone changes. Entered the best approximation I could. Turned the crank and this popped out.”

Erica squinted at the graph, but was a little too far away to read the axis legends and she was too tired to come closer. “I sure hope that shows our rate of progress, but somehow I doubt it.”

Raul nodded. “How very perceptive. This is an index of backlog. In most production industries, a steady order backlog is healthy. In our case, we’re supplying ourselves, and the backlog is increasing. That’s deadly. After yesterday, you can take that literally. We’re down here, right where the curve starts to go seriously up.”

Erica made the effort to come closer to the screen. “Oh, bloody hell. You mean it gets worse?”

‘Yeah. Geometrically. And remember, the computer just works with hard numbers. It can’t factor in morale.”

“So how do we fix it?” Erica asked, with panic rising in her voice.

“Beats me,” Raul replied. “You’re the program manager. I just plug in the numbers and report the bad news.”

Erica glanced at Raul suspiciously. “You some alien death-zombie body-snatcher from space? The real Raul Otoya never was stingy with advice.”

Raul shrugged. “You’ve got the zombie part right. This is like some damned computer cave game where the passages keep rearranging themselves. You think you’ve finally mapped out the maze, and, zing, the rules suddenly change. Like you’ve said many times, I don’t have the big picture. That’s your job. But you can take a peek in my crystal ball, if you think it will help. If I were you, I’d spend a day or two playing around with this thing, try resetting some priorities and testing some options.” Erica clicked a few menu options from the joystick on the arm of her seat. “You be around to help if I get stuck?”

“Sure. Uh, Dr. Thompson, remember GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out. Like I said, this model is short on data. First step is to get down to basics and find out what’s going on in the salt mines. Mind if I ask if you’ve been there lately?”

Erica hadn’t had her work grubbies on in months. She tried to remember the last time she had visited the project decks, or done anything but administrative work. It seemed like years, but she suspected it was only a few months.

The station was comprised of eight spokes rotating about a central hub. At the hub was the main construction hangar, Erica’s destination. Two pairs of spokes were capped with habitat modules, offering approximately full Earth gravity for the crew during their off hours. Another pair was partly developed and awaiting the incoming habitat modules. There were two stubs where the final pair of spokes would be attached. Along the spokes were a series of shop decks where smaller components and assemblies were made. Each spoke also had a reflector/concentrator and greenhouse for growing part of the crew’s food, to supplement the output of the nearby agricultural station.

The differences in construction between the habitat modules and the rest of the ship were obvious as Erica climbed up toward the hub via a series of ladders. The habitats were assembled in Earth orbit from highly refined lightweight components shuttled up from Earth’s surface at great expense. Similar to Earth-orbiting space station modules, they were the product of a bloated system of contractors and government bureaucrats who had been refining the design for perhaps half a century. All told, probably a couple of million people had a hand in the design and construction of the habitat modules.

Climbing through the docking hatch into a spoke was like stepping backwards in time. Instead of lightweight aluminum alloy ladders with carefully molded composite treads, the ladders on the other side of the hatch were made of heavy asteroid steel rods bent and welded like something from a depression-era battleship. They were nicely hand-crafted though, and every bit as functional, which wasn’t at all bad when you considered the tiny labor force that had built them. The battleship effect could be seen in most of the structure, although it was moderated by a light and cheery paint scheme. The structure had a satisfying solid feel to it.