The Delicate Crunch of Marshmallows

“Oh, hello, Dr. Thompson,” one man replied. Erica recognized him as a group leader named Preston Heckmann. The others looked up for a second, then went back to struggling with the part. “It looks as if we have got another warped brace.”

“Another one? Bloody damned hell!” They were mounting the second of the three engines. Since there was one brace of this type per engine, at least two of the three were bad. Erica would have been willing to bet the third one hadn’t even been made yet. She waved at the rest of the skeletal ship. “Haven’t you people learned to blow aluminum yet?”

“We’re learning,” he replied.

“Like hell we are,” grumbled one of the men fighting with the brace. “Maybe we’re getting better at over-drilling holes and shimming, but we’ve never gotten better than 50 percent yield.”

The group leader frowned at the grumbler, and Erica caught the implication. She had been on the other end of situations like this, and had always known how stupid it was to insulate managers from harsh reality.

She patted the group leader on the rump. “Heckmann, how about fetching your monthly milestone reports, will you, sweetie?” Heckmann scowled at the demeaning act, but dutifully pushed off toward his cubicle to fetch his computer.

She turned back to the remaining three, who were grinning like idiots. “Now, how ’bout filling Aunt Erica in on what’s really going on down here.”

The men suddenly stopped grinning and glanced uncertainly at one another.

“Well?” Erica gestured, showing her impatience.

The man on her left raised an eyebrow. “Good example?” he pointed a thumb toward Erica as he asked the man on the far right.

“Perfect. Happens just like that.” He slipped his wrench into a pocket on his right jumpsuit leg.

“Think I should tell her?”

“Why not? What have we got to lose?”

The one on the left turned toward Erica and drew a deep breath. “I suppose you sent Heckmann off so you can directly ask us some questions?”

“Yeah,” Erica replied, cautiously. “So…”

“Which means you can’t trust him to tell you how buggered up things really are,” the man on the right volunteered.

“Well, that’s what I’m here to see.” Erica hooked her right arm onto a conduit.

“So yuh start right in by tryin’ to intimidate us,” said the one in the middle. “Yuh know, Press usta be kinda a reg’lar guy, ’fore yuh turned him inta a brown-nosed lyin’ paranoid.”

Before Erica could respond, the man on the left chimed in, his previously barely noticeable Russian accent suddenly thicker. “In old country, is famous story of State Tractor Factory. Is so fouled up, cannot even put one nut and bolt together. At each level on way to Politburo, reports of progress get a little better. By time Brezhnev hears, is making a hundred thousand tractors a month.”

“Yeah, I heard that one,” Erica admitted, looking dejected. “Am I really that intimidating?”

The men looked at each other, then back to Erica, and nodded.

Erica grimaced contritely. “Sorry. If I promise to try to stop, will you promise to give me the straight story?”

“Sure,” the Russian replied, back to his previous trace of an accent. “When this thing is finished, and we take out and crank engines up to about three-quarters thrust, the whole ass-end is going to come apart like a pair of cheap size six jeans on a size fourteen rump.”

“Nah,” said the man on the right. “Never happen. They’ll never get the engines to run that well.”

Erica glanced at the one in the middle, prompting him to add his two bits.

He shrugged. “Don’t know what these yay-hoos’r moanin’ ’bout.” He gestured toward Heckmann, darting back from his cubicle with a computer in his right hand. “Everybody knows milestones is more important than a ship that actually works.”

Erica climbed back down through the spoke airlock and looked around. She spotted Kara in a corner, one arm down inside of a large machine tool. Erica bounded over behind her. The tool was humming angrily, but didn’t seem to be operating.

“Got a minute?”

“Jee-zus H. Christ! What now?” Kara dropped whatever she had been working on. It clattered down into the case, and she kicked the base of the machine. “Who the fuh—” She looked around and saw Erica. “Oh, sorry, Dr. Thompson.”

Kara pulled her arm from the machine. Erica noticed it was striped with grease, scratched, and bleeding slightly. She gestured toward the machine. “What’s the problem?”

Kara glared at the machine like she wanted to grind it up for scrap right on the spot. “Damned clutch again.” She switched it off and the humming stopped. “Been acting up for a couple of years, and getting steadily worse.” Erica peered down into the works. “Is it safe to reach down in there with the power on?”

Kara shrugged. “It’s either ten minutes doing that, or spend six hours tearing it down. Better than having the techs beat each other’s brains out over lack of access.”