"Print out the design flaws for models XL-724 through XL-755."
Turlough resisted the urge to say please. The last time he did it, one of his interns heard him. It's always awkward trying to explain politeness to non-sentient computer systems.
The printer began printing out several sheets of polymerized cellulose, which Turlough preferred to call paper. When he glanced at the high-temperature bonded carbon (ink, he thought) he noticed that these were not what he'd requested.
"Perhaps I should have been more specific. I wanted the design flaws, not," he checked the papers again, "Counselor Greeb's last 17 senate speeches. So let's try this again. Print out the design flaws for models XL-724 through XL-755." He paused. "Please!"
Turlough waited patiently for all of 5 minutes. When the printer still hadn't turned on, he kicked the device and then left his office. Without activating the door chime, he entered Caryl's office. "All right, Caryl, you can stop with the practical jokes. I really need those reports."
Caryl N'toya looked at her red-haired mentor with puzzlement in her expression. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"The printer in my office. It either prints out things that no one in his right mind would print out, or it refuses to work." Turlough sat in the chair in front of Caryl's desk.
Her confused expression had not yet diminished. "And I'm related to this printer failure in what way?"
"Come on, don't act the innocent. You're the only one in this end of the complex, other than me, who could do this."
Caryl frowned. "Believe me, I'd do many things as a practical joke, but never interfere with your research."
With her earnest concern, Turlough began to doubt his earlier suspicions. "So what's gone wrong with the printer?"
"Let's go look, shall we?" Caryl and Turlough went into his office.
"Ambassador Apolticus, what is your opinion of the riots on your southern continent? Why should the Trions…"
The hologram hiccuped and the image of Counselor Greeb changed into Model XL-750. The voice continued, however, as various components of the model were highlighted.
Turlough started the diagnostic program. Caryl went to the hologram emitters and looked for a way to turn the image off. Currently it was showing off a faulty drive shaft and explaining how the Trions couldn't risk adjoining themselves with a planet that cannot even control its own population.
"Would you please put that emitter down. It's not the problem," Turlough took the emitter from his intern. "I can't seem to get into the system to shut things down."
"Try turning off the speakers, at least then we can think more clearly."
The voice finally shut down after Turlough disabled the speakers. Meanwhile, the hologram kept alternating engine models and Greeb.
"According to diagnostics, my computer is working fine." Turlough slumped in his chair. "What is going on? These computers weren't this unreliable five years ago."
Caryl sat in the chair nearest Turlough. She thought for a bit before replying, "It could be the ghost, you know?"
Turlough looked at her. "Ghost? Please, I'd like some practical answers."
"No, really, it's the right time of the year for it to manifest itself."
"When did you change from an astrophysicist into a fruitcake?" he shook his head. "There are no such things as ghosts. I've traveled around a bit. I know these things."
"You know there are things out there that even we haven't been able to explain properly. How do you know that there aren't ghosts? Just because you've never come across them doesn't mean they don't exist."
Turlough sighed. "I know I'm going to regret this, but please, tell me all about this ghost."
Caryl smiled. "It's a fascinating story, believe me.
"The first year of the coup, when your family were exiled along with hundreds of others, there was a computer programmer who worked in this complex who was killed by the revolutionaries. He refused to leave his computers and so they killed him on the spot."
"On this spot?" Turlough asked, incredulous.
"No, over in the programming department, third floor. Now be quiet so I can tell the story."
Turlough smiled graciously, "By all means…"
"A year later, the oddest things began to happen to all the computers in the complex. It would go from department to department, always screwing up the computers. One of the cultural linguists from the top floor suggested it was the programmer's ghost on a rampage."
Turlough snorted, then waved to let Caryl continue her story.
"Ever since then, once a year, usually lasting about a week, the computers all go funny. It has to be the ghost. We've just sort of accepted it."
"I sometimes wonder if the coup didn't affect all your brains adversely. Maybe they used some sort of chemical element to turn your reasoning into mush. There are no such things as ghosts, so there is some other explanation for the odd behavior."
"Turlough, even your own diagnostic program couldn't tell you what was wrong. We've been dealing with this oddity for a few years, remember."
"Yes, and you've grown complacent. I'll find your ghost for you, and when you see that there's some physical reason for the computer glitch, you'll," Turlough thought about what he'd want most from a wager, "You'll isolate my system from the rest of the complex."
"Isolate your system? Do you know how many regulations that will break?"
Turlough nodded.
Caryl thought for a bit. "All right, but if you can't find it, say, within the week, you'll take me out to dinner this weekend." Turlough grimaced, his intern had a crush on him that was positively embarrassing, but reluctantly agreed. He was certain he could find the real reason for the "ghost." He wandered out of his office to find a computer that was actually working.
Several days had passed and most of the complex computers had encountered the same problems Turlough's had faced. His had calmed down since then, but he preferred to use his computer at his house. He was sure there was something about the near regularity of the "attacks" on the computer systems. He'd set his computer to start cross-referencing all processes that occurred yearly and took around a week to complete. Astronomical, tidal, biological, chemical, anything that might even remotely affect a computer system. It was still working on the problem.
Meanwhile he researched the history of the ghost. Caryl was correct when she said that the computer glitches occurred yearly, and usually around the same time. That was one fact that bothered him. If, and this was a very unbelievable if, there was a ghost, why wouldn't he come on the very day of his death? Not a few days before, or a few days after. Last year the glitch had occurred a full week after his death. Not a very punctual man. When he'd said this to Caryl, her reply was that computer programmers were the least punctual people she'd ever met.
Turlough was currently reading other theories about the yearly glitch. The computer virus theory bit the dust when all the computers were stripped of every vestige of programming and then completely reprogrammed using the computers from the complex next to them. One theorist thought that it had to do with a magnetic flux from the planet's magnetic field, only such a flux was never measured. They'd considered swapping computers with another complex, but since they were built into the very foundation of the complex, that would have been more expensive than the small amount of damage the one week glitch ever caused. The most interesting report that Turlough read was about the very small energy changes in the system. These were discovered along with very small magnetic changes (but nothing to do with the planetary field) but were never adequately explained. Turlough had been correct, the scientists of the complex had become complacent. It was just something one lived with.
"So, are you coming to the party tomorrow?" Caryl asked Turlough.
"What party?" He was working in his office the next day, sorting through the data that he'd compiled at his house. He had a theory that was forming and had eschewed his office duties for the afternoon.
"In the complex rec-room. The folks from programming are having a party in honor of the ghost."
Turlough stared at the young woman in front of him, "Et tu, Caryl?"
"Pardon?"
"Nothing. When is it?"
"Tomorrow after the shift ends. There will be lots of good food. And I've bought a new outfit I want to try out." Caryl winked as seductively as she could and Turlough sighed inwardly.
"I'm afraid that I'm a bit too busy..."
"Oh, that's a shame. But if you find some time, stop in. It'll be a real giggle." Caryl left the office, leaving Turlough alone to finish his research.
He glanced at the document in front of him, one of the documents that his computer back home had flagged important. As he read the information he reconciled it with the history of the ghost. You see, he thought to himself, it's absolutely impossible that the "ghost" is of the computer programmer killed during the coup.
"What do you mean impossible? We don't know for sure if ghosts are possible or not," one of the programmers said as he bit into another fruit slice. There were several people from the party crowded around Turlough, including Caryl, as he talked about his new theory about the computer glitch.
"I shall say nothing about the existence or nonexistence of ghosts for today, though you know my own opinion. But I can say that it's impossible for our programmer to be the ghost. What the ghost theorists seem to miss is that our programmer was working on the same problem that we've been having when he was killed."
The group around Turlough all looked shocked.
"Does this mean we have to stop the party?" one of the crowd asked before he was nudged by his wife.
"It turns out that this was the second year of the problem and he was trying to figure out what was causing the unusual behavior. He refused to leave the complex because of those problems. I've been reading his original notes and he had some rather interesting theories himself, though I've disproved them already."
"So if his ghost isn't responsible, what is?" Caryl's question was on everyone's lips, but she was the first to ask. Turlough smiled at his intern.
"I'll tell you shortly. But first, I'd like to get on my soap box for a bit." When the group looked at him oddly, he said, "It's an Earth expression meaning that I'm going to speak my mind for a bit and not concern myself with bruising egos.
"What I find so pathetic about all of this is that you've had this problem for seven years and could have found the answer as easily as I did. Only you've grown so," he searched for the right term, "so ignorantly satisfied over the years. With so many of our people exiled or killed, your own careers took off, perhaps when they shouldn't have in the first place." A few of the crowd grumbled about this, but a stony look from Turlough silenced them.
"None of you have any real rebuttal to this, you know. Any one of you could have sat down with your computers and researched the anomalies. The main problem I noticed was the irregularity of the events. Sure, they were yearly, but never exactly at the same time. This, to me, ruled out viruses and other programming events that are as regular as clockwork. I decided it was probably something natural. Perhaps geological or even biological.
"Did you know that the Megrallinius antillius breeds once a year? That it lays its eggs near a source of electrical energy and when the eggs hatch, the hatchlings use the energy to grow strong enough to leave the nests? Did you know that for a colony of these nests, it usually takes about a week for all of the eggs to hatch?"
The crowd looked blank. Turlough sighed.
"Fascinating. How is it you were the first to discover this?" Caryl said, in awe.
"You all were willing to believe it was a ghost, so there was no reason to look otherwise for an answer. I refused to believe in them, so I had to find an alternative. As my mother always said when we were faced with an explanation that seemed implausible, 'What other explanation can there be?' So I looked for an alternative and found it.
"There was a similar infestation about 90 years ago in a complex about 40 kilometers from here. When I informed the computer that I was looking for an event that occurred yearly and took about a week, one of the articles it found was about that other complex." Turlough wandered over to the rec-room computer and looked for the access panel.
"On Earth they have an interesting expression," said Turlough while his hands were rummaging around the computer's insides. "If there's a computer fault that is due to faulty programming," Turlough removed his hand from the access panel, and hundreds of tiny blue-green insects moved over his hand. "They say that there are bugs in the system. I'd say that euphemism would be perfect in this case."
The crowd moved around him. Most seemed stunned. Caryl took one of the Megrallinius antillius from Turlough's hand. Others were doing the same and examining the bugs in detail.
"Well, I hope you all enjoy your new found friends. I need to go do some more research on fusion drives." As Turlough left the room, he once again shook his head at incompetent methodology. To think, he thought leaving Earth would return him to civilization. "Trions," he muttered to himself.