Spares

        “The allocator,” Kendall announced, “is fused.”

        “That’s what I said,” came Nabil7’s voice from the radio, currently hung about her neck. He was currently jockeying a camera drone through the next unit along, which was connected to the 3D printer banks below. Either that or life support, and they should probably double-check before switching anything off.

        “The allocator.” She pulled up the schematics on her portable display. “What’s it allocating?” Not for the first time, the blueprints for the Ark Abandoned Bride failed to match what she actually found behind the panels. The work crews had been short of materials and there had been a lot of workarounds back in the day. And that day was a century ago and there weren’t many people left whom a 3rd generation engineer like Kendall could ask.

        “Maybe not anything. However, it’s integral to the digital architecture. Screwed allocator equals screwed entire system.”