"John G. Hemry - Do No Harm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hemry John G)

DO NO HARM
by JOHN G. HEMRY

It’s possible to do some jobs too well!
****
Sandra’s acting weird, the geeks can’t figure out why, and the boss is
spinning like a pulsar.”
Kevlin pulled his attention out from the immersive medical simulation long
enough to give Yasmina a questioning look. “I thought Sandra was supposed to
leave this morning.”
“Right. She won’t go. Come on. The director’s called an all-principals
meeting.”
“I’m a doctor,” Kevlin objected. “I’m supposed to keep the people working
for the corporation on this station healthy. Why do I care about Sandra’s
problems?”
Yasmina smiled back at him in a mocking way. “I’m a doctor, too. If I have
to go, so do you.”
“They need you to analyze the project director’s mind just in case he gets
really dangerous this time,” Kevlin suggested. “I’m just a simple country doctor with
a low-gravity, space illness specialty.”
“Sure. Then you’ll come in handy if the director bursts a vein while he’s
yelling at everyone.” Yasmina beckoned. “Come on.”
Grumbling just loud enough for her to hear, Kevlin paused the sim and
followed her down the hallway. “I could always monitor the director’s health from
my office,” he suggested.
“Nice try. Didn’t your teachers at med school ever tell you not to try to con a
shrink?”
Sandra was still at loading dock four alpha. Yasmina led the way onboard the
ship, then along a passageway that ended in Sandra’s control room. The limited area
was already full of exasperated engineers of various types and persuasions, some
looking dejected, some angry, and some staring into space as they tried to think.
“Why can’t we do a virtual meeting?” one complained as Kevlin and Yasmina
wedged their way in.
Another engineer answered in an accusing voice. “Because the director found
out you guys had been hacking the meeting code so you could have avatars sitting in
for you while you did other stuff. Now we all have to crowd in here in person so he
can be sure we’re all actually getting yelled at.”
 “People have been hacking virtual meeting code since the Stone Age,” the first
engineer protested, then hastily stopped speaking as a short man with a lofty attitude
and an ugly frown strode in, the crowd somehow contracting away from him so he
had free room.
“Report,” the director stated, glowering at the chief designer.
The chief designer, who had been arguing with Sandra’s captain, made a
helpless gesture. “Sandra won’t work. Something’s shorting out her central control
functions.”
The director’s glower deepened. “The Spaceship Autonomous Network
Developmental Research Application is the most expensive project in the history of
this company. I expect more from you than vague reports that it just doesn’t work!
Are you saying the control network isn’t receiving the commands?”
“No,” the chief designer responded in a tight voice. “I’m saying that the