A gnu, an accountant, a generation ship.
Wiszroy had never seen a workspace as grand as prime accountant Hiboblat Squolwelch's office. It must have been at least three times as big as any other office on the
Marquis of Roxbury. Which wasn't to say it was a particularly big room - compared to the mess hall or the bridge it was a mere filing cabinet - but it had space for a faux-leather chair and a table with an actual gooseneck lamp on it that gently trembled with the low hum of the generation ship's engines. It was the kind of room Wiszroy dreamed of.
Hiboblat who had barely acknowledged the young prognosticator's presence laid down his pen and
picarded his brow.
"You look tense, Mr Squolwelch,"said Wiszroy, "would you like me to pour you a glass of soylent?"
"No time!" replied Hiboblat,"if I need liquids, I'll order a drip."
Wiszroy placed the lever arch folder in his arms into a large tray marked "IN" in bold, san-serif letters. "If I may ask, Sir. Is there anything I can help you with?"
Hiboblat sighed, "Not unless you have a magic ledger tucked up your sleeve."
"I don't follow you, Sir."
"Savings, man,
savings!" Hiboblat banged his fist on the desk and Wiszroy jumped.
"Oh now look what you made me do. Two 'savings' when I only needed one. This kind of redundancy is exactly what caused the
Evergrande to collapse."
"If you will forgive me, Sir, I thought the root cause of the Evergrande catastrophe was due to badly enacted tax and spend policies causing--"
Hiboblat scowled Wiszroy into silence.
"Sorry, Sir."
"You don't need to address me as Sir in each sentence. It wastes time. Once is enough to show respect."
"Yes, er, sorry, umm."
"Savings--" Hiboblat glared.
"Wiszroy. Prognosticator, level three, Si-- umm"
"Wiszroy, yes. Well, if we don't find something to cut then the economy of the
Marquis of Roxbury could co--
fail just like the
Evergrande or the
Brainbow. But where? This is the point."
Wiszroy rubbed the tip of his nose with his thumb and fingers as he thought. Thanks to Hibboblat and the hard work of his fiduciary prognosticators, they had refined each and every productive process on the ship until every element was as efficient as the laws of physics would allow. The generation ship's sub light engines were running at ninety eight percent efficiency, food production and waste treatment were so in sync that people barely noticed they were eating last night's meals. Even the messy business of
making babies had been refined from
wham bam, thank you ma'am down to a mere
wham! Every ounce of economic fat had been stripped from the ship's societal bones, yet Hiboblat was still not satisfied.
"If I may ask--"
"Of course you may! You'd be out otherwise!"
"Oh. Are you sure you need to cut anything at all? The treasury must surely understand--"
"The treasury have nothing to do with it! We're talking macromicronomics.
"
"Which means?"
"G'lord! What are they teaching you in the academy?"
"Well, the budget for advanced prognostication was cut before I graduated, so I majored in econethical studies."
"You're at least familiar with Chaos Theory?"
"That each and every action, no matter how small, sets in motion a chain of events that has an utterly unpredictable outcome?"
"Yes would have been acceptable. Well, what does that tell you?"
"That it's not possible to control events due to the large number of variables involved?"
"And--"
"That no matter how well oiled a machine is it will inevitably succumb to inertia."
"Which means--"
"Collapse is inevitable?"
Wiszreoy didn't follow the logic of the conversation, but Hiboblat seemed to be steering him towards the answer he wanted. If it was impossible to predict an outcome, how could it be inevitable? More so, what did this have to do with finding savings? Had he lost his mind? No, he was the prime. Best to avow to his expertise. Besides, Wiszreoy was feeling hungry and lunch time was approaching.
Wiszreoy pulled his tablet from his chest and switched it on. The screen jumped into life with the friendly gnu logo
"I'm sorry Si-, er,
sirrump, I have a meeting request from--"
"What's that?"
I held up the tablet. "This? It's a tablet, same as your--."
"No,
that." He pointed to the gnu logo.
"This? It's a logo. For the operating system."
"Gnu..." Hiboblat stroked his chin, "What does it mean."
"It's open source. It's developed free of charge by volunteers who can work on the software in their spare time."
"Any what do they get in return for developing this?"
"Nothing,
Sir," Wizseroy flinched but continued, "it's free."
"Clarify. The developers aren't paid for their labour in any way?"
"That's correct."
Hiboblat's eyes sparkled with glee. "Yes, open source. That's... delightful. Wiszeroy you may have just saved this ship." He began to roll up his sleeve. "I think I'm ready for that soylent now."
An unstoppable, flailing cyborg. A selection of delicious candy. Romance.
