“Is Anyone There?”

“You sort out that anomaly yet?” asked Dr. Dickerson. Dr. Malthora looked up from the computer monitor and frowned at him.

“No.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Every time we try to subtract out the anomalous signature, we end up losing some of the good data.”

“Which correction algorithm are you using?”

“Yerkes-Hamilton.”

“Hm…that should work for a K-anomaly like that…”

“Yeah, I know that.” Malthora frowned again and took a sip of his espresso.

“You’re gonna get an ulcer drinking that stuff.”

“I’m going to get an ulcer working here no matter what happens. Ah! There! It’s done!” Malthora peered blearily at the screen, and Dickerson joined him. In a blank white window on the monitor, a skein of colored particle traces swept downwards, followed by a second, differently-colored tangle. Then, a hideous neon-magenta trace descended. Malthora, who had been preparing to take another sip of espresso, dropped his cup. Dickerson took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, put his glasses back on, and fainted.

 

Identity?

Since time immemorial, ships of all descriptions have been referred to by the English pronoun “her.” Until January of 2013, this was little more than an unusual custom, a probable holdover from a time when English was still part of another language, one with gendered nouns. But in the first month of 2013, after the Navy finally launched the long-awaited USS Eve, that once obsolescent custom took on a new meaning.

Eve was the second-largest aircraft carrier ever constructed, after the USS Raymond Keyes, built the year before. At 2,800 feet long, however, she was still very impressive, even in an era when all military vehicles seemed to be getting endlessly larger. Three nuclear reactors. A whole slew of guns. A conning tower that looked like a little skyscraper. A flight deck so long that some of the crew swore that you could see it curve along with the curvature of the Earth. An incredibly imposing ship, indeed. The pride of a nation.