by Patty Jansen
“Yes.”
“And even if it does float in the right direction, it might take a very long time.”
“Yes. This was before any form of long-distance communication existed.”
Her frown deepened, as if she couldn’t imagine such a thing. “But the people could be long dead by the time anyone found them.”
“Yes. But sending a physical message by land was the only way to contact another person.”
Now she looked at the jar. “So, is this such a thing? Why would anyone use it while we have so much better communication? Is this real or a joke?”
“That is the question, isn’t it?”
“What does it mean? That is writing, isn’t it?”
“It says ‘Help’. I don’t know what any of those other scrawls mean. There’s an arrow here, but I have no idea what the other things are.”
Thayu squinted at the paper. She shook her head. “What do they mean, help?”
I spread my hands. “That’s the big question.”
Veyada said, “My big question would be: why is it written in Isla?”
Well, yes, that, too.
Thayu said, “Someone trying to pull a prank? Trying to see how far a jar will float? This could have been lying here for years.”
Veyada shook his head. “The paper would be covered in mould and the lid would have been gummed shut with salt and growths. It’s recent.”
“I agree,” I said.
“And I still don’t see why it should be in Isla.”
No, he was right. But I had no idea either. It was very, very strange.
CHAPTER 2
* * *
I PUT THE JAR with our packs in the boat and then spent the entire way back to Barresh thinking about how this jar would have ended up where I found it.
It just didn’t make any sense.
Barresh was the biggest settlement on the entire west coast of the continent and definitely the only one where people from Earth would live or even visit.
For someone to write a message in Isla expecting someone who could understand it to find it was . . . ludicrous. The person who wrote the message would be . . .
A tourist who didn’t know any local languages? Highly unlikely. It was hard enough to get a permit to travel here, and expensive enough to use the Exchange, that people who travelled to other worlds usually did so for a very good reason. They were very few, but they all had family or business interests on other worlds, which meant that they had at least some knowledge of other languages. Enough to write “Help” in Coldi.
Playing a trick? I couldn’t see what purpose it would serve. Pranks only worked if someone else appreciated it and could laugh at it.
Children playing? I could understand that. There were people from Earth with families in Barresh, and their kids could have been playing pirates or something. But then for the jar to have washed out of the city, out of the delta onto the ocean side of the sand bar was a real stretch.
On the other hand, the only other settlements along the coast were Pengali villages, and they had no need for storage jars and even less need for ferry timetables and absolutely no need for notes written in Isla.
And there was that storm that had washed a lot of rubbish out of the city, when it was so windy that many trees had fallen over, and so much water fell that the council had to open the locks that drained water out of the canals into the marshland.
So, had it been left somewhere by children and then washed out to sea after the rain?
Maybe. I’d have to investigate it.
We arrived at the gamra island.
Thayu steered the boat to the jetty. Two keihu youngsters from the downstairs kitchen and domestic staff had come to meet us with a trolley. They took the tent, cooking gear and large items, like the surfboard, that we handed to them from the boat.
We carried our weapons and personal packs, and I rescued the jar before it got put on the trolley.
It was quiet on the quay and in the building. We’d been able to plan the trip because the assembly wasn’t sitting and many delegates were visiting their home worlds. When sessions resumed, we would be gearing up for the election for Chief Delegate, so many delegates needed to consult with authorities back home. They wanted to show the people at home that the delegate they would be voting for was the best choice.
Not that the race was terribly heated.
Soon after getting the Aghyrian ship to leave, I’d managed to get the assembly to vote Marin Federza as temporary Chief Delegate. His instatement had heralded such an industrious, quiet, scandal-free period that no one had felt the need to stand against him. Not that no one would change their mind at the last moment, but for now, things were quiet and under control.
I was happy to see that Evi and Telaris were not at the door. It was quiet in the hall of my apartment, too. The boys hadn’t yet returned with our luggage, because they had to wait for the lift.
I couldn’t see Eirani, but I spotted the shimmer of a projection in the hub, so I went in there.
Devlin sat at the control bench, looking at a projection of a block of text. His eyes moved as he read and he didn’t seem to have noticed that I’d come in.
“Anything going on?” I asked.
He started. “Oh, Muri, you’re back.”
“Yes, we just came in. Is anything the matter?” I hadn’t liked that look on his face as he read, before he noticed me.
“In a way, yes. There has been a breach of security. This is a report from the Exchange for a check they did on our systems. I got it just now. They’re saying that we’re fine with the hub up here, but the downstairs office is compromised.”
“What? How? The databases?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Communication was almost always compromised. That came with Coldi and their loyalty networks. Occasionally gamra employed a new head of security who was not Coldi and who suddenly “noticed” all these lines of communication everywhere and would ring unnecessary alarm bells. Devlin had enough experience not to flip out when that happened anymore. The annoying part about it was that the breaches alway took us away from things we should be doing instead.
We simply had to deal with it.
Bugger.
I sat down on the bench next to him. By the look of things, he’d been sitting there for a while, having gathered a collection of empty cups around him. Since when did he drink manazhu?
“I’m sorry,” he said when he noticed me looking at the cups. “I tried some and I liked it. I’ll buy some more when it runs out.”
“That’s not necessary. I’ll gladly have a drinking partner. Has Eirani seen you drinking it yet?”
“She has.”
“The look on her face would have been something. Pity I missed that.”
He laughed. Then his face turned serious again. “This report says that someone installed bugs in our communication system downstairs. They came through some external newsletter advertising archiving services. We’re always getting those types of newsletters. You know, the ones from businesses hoping to sell their services.”
I nodded. Gamra was big business in town, the most important source of income after agriculture, and there were always hopefuls wanting to sell their services to diplomats with deep pockets. They would send elaborate and sometimes quite garish messages.
“Don’t we have measures to prevent infection from outside?”
“Yes, but it bypassed our scans. Apparently the newsletter contained a bug that was only activated when it was transferred to a less-secure directory and it went from there.”
“What does it do?” I rubbed my eyes. It was a rude shock to deal with this kind of crap immediately after walking in from a relaxing trip. I was having trouble getting my brain to engage.
“They’re working on that. They’ll report back when they’ve completed their analysis.”
“Who else is affected?”
“A few people, but mainly us. I think they targeted us because we ran out o
f storage space when you were gone.”
“That’s a while ago, and how would they know about that? It’s not exactly a thing you talk about with other people.”
“People know, that’s all I can say. Also, if your business is storage and archiving, you would have ways of knowing.”
“I guess.” I scratched my head. “Another option could be that this has been going on for a long time and it’s a remnant of some of Renkati’s systems that were left in this apartment. People in town would know about this and would know how to access it.”
He gave me a disturbed look. “But didn’t gamra security check the entire apartment?”
A voice came out of the darkness, “Gamra security is utter crap. I’ve been saying so for ages.” That was Sheydu, and yes, she had been saying this for ages.
“Hello, Sheydu. I hope you had a nice break, too.”
She gave me the evil eye. Sheydu did not have breaks. Sheydu was always right. And yes, after spending some time with her, I was coming around to her point of view.
I looked at the document that Devlin had on the projector in front of him. It was a dry report that stated exactly in which directories foreign material had been discovered. It was mostly communication from the office: our contact lists, our logged conversations from the office and anything that people had sent us that we hadn’t yet moved to the system upstairs. The list contained nothing too damaging as yet, mainly operational stuff that I didn’t always see the need to protect, but that was protected, as per gamra protocol.
“What is the status of our gamra directory’s security?”
“I’ve checked and moved all the classified material to a separate encrypted area. I’ve not yet found anything suspicious.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s not there,” Sheydu said.
That area contained highly sensitive information in relation to Asto, and hundreds of other things that at the very least I would be uncomfortable sharing with people for whom it was not intended.
I sighed, forcing my brain out of its holiday mode.
“All right, show me what you’ve done and found out so far.”
Devlin showed me the offending document, a nondescript solicitation to let the sender of the document take care of archiving. It was definitely a local, keihu-run business. Only in Barresh did people have this irrational prejudice against using company names. Maybe one day a long time ago, when Barresh had been a frontier town and everyone knew one another, business names were not necessary, but that time had long passed, and the tendency of keihu business owners not to name their companies was one of the most annoying features of the local scene.
The advertisement touted in bright letters CHEAPER THAN GAMRA ARCHIVES. The bright and screaming text irritated me. That alone should be a red flag never to use this joint. It even irritated me that some people engaged the services of these types of fly-by-night operators. There was not that much money to be saved, delegations got very generous stipends and all of the official services were fully integrated. The document contained a little jiggly graphic of a clock counting down—presumably to when the SPECIAL OFFER finished—and it was this thing that contained the offending bit of code. It apparently opened a communication channel when called from the outside.
Devlin couldn’t yet tell me whether anyone had already used the channel, much less what they would have been looking for. He’d let me know when he found out.
* * *
With that, I left the room. I went into the bedroom where Eirani had already unpacked all my things, taken them to the laundry and put them in the wardrobes or the storage downstairs. Thayu would insist that I went armed everywhere, but I drew the line at wearing a weapon inside my own house. I unclipped the gun bracket from my arm and put it on the cabinet next to the wall, next to the jar with the piece of paper that Eirani had set there.
I picked it up and turned it over, so that the piece of waxed paper inside rolled around.
When I was a little boy, my grandfather on his farm in the Bay of Islands used to tell me that things were never as simple as they looked or as difficult as they appeared to be. He would also say that problems were like band-aids: once you lifted a corner, it was easier to get the rest off.
I was looking at firmly stuck plaster with this one.
I was just getting my gamra blues out of the wardrobe when the door rattled open and Thayu came in. She frowned. “What are you doing with those?” She nodded at the blue shirt in my hands.
“I’m going to see Melissa after dinner.”
“Do you still think that message could be serious?”
“I don’t know what to think. I don’t want to discount that it could be serious. I don’t want to be blamed for not taking something seriously when I should have, and that some person died because I didn’t do anything.”
“If they’re really in trouble they’ll be dead already anyway.”
“I love your optimism.”
“Have you seen the teeth on the beisili? They’ll just nibble at anyone unable to get away quickly enough. It’s their breeding season, too, so they’ll be aggressive.”
“But the person didn’t necessarily have to enter the water.”
“Tell me how to go anywhere on the coast without getting in the water. They attack boats, too. Some of those island have no fresh water. If this person is anywhere further down the coast, the Thousand Islands tribe will have killed them off.”
“You are on a roll today.”
“Yes. If you want to die, eels are better than beisili or hostile Pengali with poison darts. The eels will eat you in one go. No long days of agonising pain involved.”
“Thay’!”
“I’m just being realistic. If someone got lost out there and found it necessary to use this . . . archaic form of communication, they would already have been dead even before the moment you first took that piece of paper out of the jar this morning.”
There was a sound at the door, and Nicha came in, carrying his son. Little Ayshada looked around with wide-open eyes, taking everything in. He gave a squeal when he saw Thayu, and Nicha handed him to his sister.
Thayu bounced him on her arm. He laughed loudly and then she tickled him, which caused him to make even more noise. Yes, I knew she wanted a child and, despite telling me that there was no hurry, I had to do something about that sooner rather than later.
“How was the fishing?” Nicha asked me.
“It was good,” I said, and went into a description of what we caught and ate.
Nicha pulled a face. He did not like fish. Like most Coldi, he was mostly vegetarian. He ate eggs and worms and snails and crayfish from Asto, but that was as far as his meat-eating went.
Thayu said, “I heard a bit of issue developed here with the security while we were away.”
“Yeah,” Nicha scratched his head. “Not sure what all the fuss is about, but we’ll let gamra security do their thing and we’ll hear about it soon enough. We seem to be getting one of these breaches at least twice a year.” He nodded at the blue shirt that I still held in my hands. “You look like you’re going somewhere.”
“I’m going to see Melissa.”
“That’s an odd choice for a first visit after a trip.”
I showed him the jar and told him where we found it. As Thayu and Veyada had done, he frowned deeply, and, like them, he had no idea how that jar would have gotten there. “Maybe you can map the currents,” he said. “That way you can figure out how the jar would have fetched up where it did.”
“I’m thinking that the storm would have had quite a bit to do with how far it was carried.”
He nodded. “What would Melissa know about it?”
“Nothing, but she might be able to shed any light on exactly who from Earth is here, who is likely to have written that note or who has kids old enough to play pirates, so that I can take it there, establish what happened and we can all get on with our lives.”
“Fair enough. Do you want me to come?” Nicha asked.<
br />
“I think I’ll get better responses out of Melissa if I go by myself.” For someone having grown up with a Coldi stepfather, she was surprisingly distrustful discussing human subjects with anyone not from Earth.
Eirani called for dinner in the hall.
I left the shirt on the bed, deciding not to risk spilling food on it—that cobalt blue showed every little speck of grease.
We had a quick dinner at which Deyu and Reida were also present. They appeared to have been recruited to help Devlin with his directory checks. Deyu had proven herself quite good with systems, and her keenness to put in the effort to learn was fast outstripping Reida’s swagger and bravado.
When we finished, I went to change. I didn’t know why I always felt that to see Melissa I needed to dress up. Maybe it was because she constantly challenged me and that, because she was a journalist, I never felt quite relaxed when talking to her. She said she no longer worked for Flash Newspoint, but I bet if she saw a story worth money, she’d contact them in a heartbeat.
I decided to go all out and even strapped the gun bracket back on.
Thayu liked it, probably a sign that Melissa wouldn’t, which was the effect I was going for: this is official business, this will be logged and archived for future reference.
How good were we all becoming at the “cover my arse” attitude.
CHAPTER 3
* * *
THESE DAYS, Melissa lived on the other side of the island, not far from the station.
I walked there with Thayu and Nicha, through the leafy courtyards, shaded underpasses and service areas with shops selling basic things and also with plenty of eating houses, although none were busy.
Melissa’s apartment was quite small, the type for single, minor delegates. Sometimes I considered that if everything had gone to plan when I first came here, Nicha and I would have shared an apartment like hers; we’d have gone quietly about our business and spent lots of time attending assembly meetings, cooking our own food, writing our own correspondence and cleaning our own house.
Instead I’d been shunted into one of the largest, most expensive and prestigious apartments on the island—at least at the time it felt like I’d been shunted, with no means to pay the rent and the salaries of more than twenty staff, and even less of an idea what to do with them.