Co-Or

Chapter 5

  NARD

  Scott shook his head as if to clear the memories that had held his attention for the last few moments. Scott then broke the beam that puts Nard into action. Nard is his ship’s computer. Nard, is made by Erodammoc Inc. and he is model # 1. In other words he was the first one of his series. He does not, however, think of himself as a ship’s computer. He thinks of himself as a communication controlling expert. Scott guessed Nard was correct in that thought because the ship is a secondary task for him, er it or whatever.

  Scott slowly shook his head as his mind wondered and his thoughts were evident. "I know, I know, I am calling it a he as if it were a living human being. I do think of him as a partner or more a member of my staff, he was the only member until Fortried. Now with two staff members I must be the CEO of this outfit." He shook his head slowly as he ran things through.

  Anyway, Nard’s main job is to communicate. That’s where he gets his name. Nard stands for, “No Appreciable Radio Delay”. It is the only radio system of its kind. It has the capability to transmit in any frequency and at what ever speed is necessary to make communication between star systems as easy as face to face, without any time lag.

  Nard’s perfect annunciation always throws him and he usually misses the first few words. He just thought this had happened again because Coordinator headquarters had never, and he thought never, given any of its personnel a busy signal. He has been on the clock many years and that had never happened to him or had he heard of it happening to any other member, not in his lifetime anyway.

  “Nard?” Scott said.

  “Yes Scott.” Nard’s precise voice replied.

  “Was my boss in?” Scott asked about Director Colby, the Star Board Commander and his immediate supervisor.

  Nard’s words were even more explicit as he repeated his first message. With a hint of impatiens he replied, “As I said before Scott, the line is busy. I know that is not easy for you to accept but…”

  “Easy to accept! It is not possible.” Scott leaned in toward the console where Nard resided, if in fact he did reside. With a great deal of anxiety he continued. “The company spent mega credits too develop this communication system of yours. It has unlimited channels. It would take almost every Coordinator in the universe calling in at the same time to make all these channels busy.” He was babbling. “You have finally flipped your micro chips. You have probably forgotten where we are, what day it is and just simply don’t know what frequency is in use at this time.”

  “I am well aware of our location, the precise time and I am positive of the required frequency.” Nard as usual replied as calm as always. “I have, however, been silently monitoring communications and find an unusual number of transmissions describing the same type of attack we have just experienced.”

  “What? Other coordinators were attacked, attacked as I was? Are you sure?” Scott was having trouble believing what he was hearing.

  “Yes, but I fear the others did not fare as well as we did. There are an unknown number of casualties.”

  Nard’s unruffled answer almost sounded like sarcasm. This was of course impossible for he was not programmed for any nor had he developed any emotions. He just reported things as they were and Scott's mind added the undertones, I guess.

  There was no reason to fault the computer for his way of speaking. Scott was still quite shook up. He had never been attacked before. His hands were shaking and his vision was blurred, he couldn't seem to think straight.