by Sarah Zettel
“The word of your new assignment has been spreading across the decks. May I congratulate you, sir? Your work brings a good memory for the Grand Errand."
Basq inclined his head. The man was obviously a status seeker, but there was no reason not to be polite, especially with Winema watching. “Thank you. I only hope my future work will do the same.” He glanced over at Caril, who stood a little in front of the man. She nodded. She would note the man’s badge code before they reached their home level. He might be willing to do them a favor or two if he thought it would add to his own status to be seen to help an Ambassador assigned to the Reclamation. Such people were worth collecting.
The lift let them out in their home level park. The park was not a crude recreation of a planetside grove. Outsiders might need such areas to overcome psychological difficulties caused by long periods in enclosed habitats, or simply to compensate for things they missed. Without the Home Ground to model from, the Vitae shunned such affectations. The park was a place where individual expression and creativity could be practiced publicly. They passed a trio of young women in purple-and-black student robes intently discussing the positioning of figures in the choreo-poem that filled the main display stage. Basq also noticed that two of the free-access terminals showed new titles on their displays. Maybe he and Caril would have time to attend a discussion. It might give them a chance to talk about their work out from under the gaze of the Witness. Then he winced. The wall behind the choreo-poem had been covered with a carefully printed text lecture. Above the tidy print, the linked circles of the Imperialists had been drawn with equal care.
Basq’s jaw tightened. When his promotions had granted him access to greater space for personal work, he had requested a residence adjoining a park. If one knew how to read the events recorded in the parks, one could make advantageous predictions about the ship or encampments. Which was, of course, the best reason of all for their existence. They were forums for legitimate arguments as well as pressure valves. In the parks, dissidents could vent their anger before it built up to truly dangerous levels.
But that reasoning had its drawbacks. It meant the most determined and intelligent dissidents kept their activities far away from the parks. Jahidh’s thoughts had never appeared there. Basq had watched for them.
He didn’t let the Imperialist text or his thoughts break his stride. At this moment, he could not be seen to care about anything but setting to work.
Caril let Basq open their door, as etiquette dictated. The portal slid aside to reveal a hive of activity. All four of Basq’s contracted Intership Ambassadors were seated at their stations. The stations themselves were cubical areas marked by pillars of communication fibers sheathed in optical matter. Holosheets or prerecorded requests could be hung from the pillars so that the machines could tap the datastores on other ships for routine retrieval and sort operations. The ISAs themselves handled the calls where complexity or courtesy required personal contact. Their voices rilled the air as they advised, coordinated, recalled, or referenced contacts regarding Basq’s new status and potential requirements. His three apprentices, all of them shaved and robed in red, bustled between the stations, carrying drinks or extra holosheets or relaying questions between the ISAs.
Basq felt his chest swell with pride. He had dismissed his Beholden before he donned his white robe to go meet with his Contractors. Caril must have recalled them all the second the contracts for his new assignment arrived. She had meant more than he had expected when she said, “I will have our quarters ready.”
“Jene,” Basq called above the voices. The supervisor of the team put his station into stasis with two keystrokes and presented himself in front of Basq, a little too quickly. Jene was a student Contractor and the purple bands on his robe were cut with black diamonds. One of the honors conferred on Basq with his promotion was Jene. Under Basq’s guidance, Jene was learning to coordinate and supervise a team of Beholden. “Have the team suspend their activities and stand ready for new assignments. Compile a report of the status of our current resources and contracts.”
“Yes, Ambassador.” Jene’s gaze slid over Basq’s shoulder to Winema.
“Do you see something I don’t, Supervisor?” Basq inquired.
“No, Ambassador,” Jene brought his attention back where it belonged. “The report will be prepared and logged in fifteen minutes.”
“That will be sufficient.” When Jene completed his schooling, he would automatically become Basq’s superior, but if he was unable to handle the tasks his station required both in terms of complexity and etiquette, he’d have nothing to thank Basq for.
Basq fixed his gaze on his work alcove and headed straight for it. His apprentices stepped around him without a word. Praise and greetings to his Beholden would be handed out once Jene’s report had shown him what they had earned.
Let it be seen I run my team properly. No one in this atmosphere will be led to inappropriate ideas or manners. Let it be seen that if Jahidh had not been removed from our care, he would have never even thought of defecting.
Pointless fear, Basq scolded himself. Why can I not let it go? If anyone had any thought that his actions reflected on me, on us, I would not have been assigned to the committee.
Without needing to be asked, Caril retrieved two extra chairs from the main room. Winema did not sit down immediately. While Basq pressed the contract holosheets into the fiber-filled walls, Winema opened her bag. She took out two cubical system taps and typed in their activation codes. Caril stepped around her to raise the privacy walls. Grey-white optical matter spread out from the walls, building on itself until it fenced in the entire work area.
Winema affixed the first tap to the arm of Basq’s terminal chair. When her hand released it, the red warning light blinked on. If the tap were moved or if its dataflow was disturbed without the proper signals being given, Winema would see a warning on her camera set. So would all the other active Witnesses. She hung the second tap between the contracts.
Visible taps on his terminal, of course, were no guarantee that Winema had not ordered invisible ones to be placed on his Beholden’s terminals. It was well within the bounds of her contract to order the entire area to be placed under a continuous data scan.
Winema took her seat next to Caril, and Basq settled himself in the terminal chair. He swung the keypads into place. Although he had meant what he had said to Caril when he greeted her, part of him knew that home for him was really in front of his terminal. This was where he had made the discoveries about Eric Born that led directly to the location of the Home Ground.
Basq’s terminal was not the standard type, like the ones his students and Beholden used. Those were designed with processing layers of generalized organic chains between the silicates. The means for making organic/inorganic chips was another of the private technologies. The integration of organics ensured that no outside machine could tap into the Vitae private network because it would be unable to decode the chemical signals that diffused them. The organics in Basq’s terminal took the technology a step further. They had been designed from maps of his cerebral cortex and cloned from his own cell structure. Basq’s terminal could be used to assemble information in a way that matched the way Basq thought. It was, in many ways, his learning and skill directly enhanced by the speed and precision of a machine.
Basq settled his hands into position on the slip-keys that covered his control pads. There were those who used vocal interfaces, giving orders to their terminals and receiving answers as if they were dealing with apprentices or Beholden. Basq had never liked that. He liked to shuffle and manipulate tangible results. It gave him a better feel for his work.
It only took a moment to slip the keys into new positions so that the board was reconfigured to lock the posted contracts into the main dataflow. Now, the sheets could be read through the network by anyone who needed to verify Basq’s authority, but their contents could not be changed without a direct signal from either Avir or Kelat.
Th
e next thing to be done was to call up Jene’s report of the current resources and status of the terminals in the main room. Basq slid his keys into the proper positions. The main display space showed him a tidy series of graphs indicating available storage space as well as a chart of the channels that had been opened or reserved.
As it stood, he could instantly contact the persons of Ivale or Uary, or read through the information in their datastores. He also had an open line to the main datastore of the Hundredth Core and one of the ISAs, Paral, wasn’t it? Basq squinted at the ID code under the chart; Paral had thought to draw up contracts for time on the lines between the Grand Errand and each of the ships in the encampment, just in case they were required. Basq made a mental note to give the ISA his warmest personal greeting.
All the resources he might need were available and all of them ready for his orders. Basq felt a bit dizzy. He was used to juggling budgets and time and angling for the attention of various Subcontractors and supervisors. Those concerns were wiped away. Now he advised the Reclamation Assembly and the information he required to serve them would be delivered whenever he asked for it.
Basq poised his hands over the keys and considered his assignment. An analysis of the level of danger that the human-derived artifacts presented to the Reclamation efforts. How to even begin to answer such a question? Then he remembered his secondary assignment. Assess the level of danger represented by the missing artifacts. It was dangerous to theorize from a sample of one, but if specifics known about Eric Born could be supplemented by the generalities known about the human-derived artifacts populating the Home Ground, then some useful conclusions might be drawn. The new revelations regarding Eric Born’s abilities added an extra dimension to the calculations. If Born could manipulate physical objects more massive than streams of photons or quanta, then he might…He might…Basq felt his heart contract.
He might even be able to tap into the private network.
Basq’s hands leapt into motion and the terminal responded immediately. It snatched up his report on the escape from Haron Station and all the conclusions that had been drawn. Basq barely noticed that most of those conclusions bore Uary’s stamp. He slid the keys back and forth with deft, determined strokes. The new findings had to be shuffled into the existing files on Eric Born. All observations had to be reinterpreted and a new pattern established that could provide an answer to the new questions. Could Eric Born tap the Vitae network? And, just as important, if he had that ability, would he realize it?
The implications were vast. Assuming that Eric Born was not the only artifact of his kind and he did have the ability to tap the network, the other artifacts did too. Were there range limitations? What would the duration of the tap be? Was there a significant energy expenditure? Answers to all those questions would be needed to prepare for a direct encounter during the Reclamation. No totally accurate information would be available at this point, since no empirical tests had been carried out, but with the terminal he could at least provide a reasoned estimate. Basq had employed all the usual observation practices from the beginning. He had made sure that Eric Born was, at random intervals, given assignments that could be recorded for analysis. When those observations had yielded evidence that Born had not evolved naturally, Basq had watched him even more closely. The majority of Born’s assignments had required him to work on space stations or other networks the Vitae Ambassadors had direct access to.
Basq watched grimly as the results of his work unfolded for him. The display space divided itself into three separate areas. One ran direct recordings of Eric Born’s observed activities, one showed stylized representations of the results of those activities, whether or not direct visual data were available, and one showed single-phase graphic enhancement of the multiphase information.
There had been less truly useful information in datastores than Basq had hoped for. Eric Born was cautious. He would only use his abilities after all other avenues had been explored. Of those instances when extramechanical intervention had been required, it appeared he did not use it simply to snatch his prize out of its storage space. Instead, he used it on a secondary or tertiary system where he could acquire the information, like a code sequence or secured ID, that he needed to reach the main objective.
The pattern of his procedure was actually quite simple and sensible. Basq supposed the artifacts were endowed with little or no imagination. Eric Born would get as close as possible to his target, which made the conclusion that he was using a finite physical resource to operate his abilities probable. Basq set a priority marker on that conclusion. If he was within half a kilometer of his target, Born would use only one terminal to achieve his goal. Over greater distances, he would use a leap-frogging approach. He would exert his abilities over a terminal that had the mechanical ability to access the more distant datastore or network that held his goal. His observed range using this method could be measured in thousands of kilometers.
Can he be traced? Basq slipped his keys into new configurations, searching the data for the means to track the artifact’s invasions. If he could be traced, Eric Born could be returned to the Vitae. Basq could see that his recovery was set in motion right now.
The terminal dredged up an answer after a search time measured in long, slow seconds. Eric Born’s invasions were traceable, not because of what showed up when he manipulated a system, but because of what did not. The system hardware would perform the requested function as if all appropriate codes or signals had been given, but no record would be left of which codes, which signals, or, indeed, which authorized person had initiated the function. Blank spots in the usage records could label a clandestine request made by Eric Born, or any other artifact that shared his abilities. Basq marked that conclusion as well.
The fact the artifacts could be traced damped down some of Basq’s apprehensions allowing him to enter the next question.
Can Eric Born tap into the private network?
The displayed data froze while the terminal worked the question over. Seconds ticked by, measured by Basq’s shallow breathing. The display space finally cleared the frozen images and in their place left a probability graph based on all the information from six years’ worth of observation and speculation. Basq’s hands curled into fists. Eric Born could do it. If he could locate a single terminal that had a physical access to the private network, he could do it easily. There were thousands of such terminals on space stations and planets where the Vitae worked. They were guarded and wired and tapped, of course, but those were all measures against ordinary threats. Their ultimate protection had always lain in a technology that was not compatible with any other system in the Quarter Galaxy. Against Eric Born, and by extension the other artifacts, that precaution was less than useless.
Which was unsettling, but not completely disastrous, because their invasions could be traced. Specific protections could be set in place.
Basq’s mind raced. Eric Born and Stone in the Wall had to be located immediately. If they returned to the Home Ground to alert the other artifacts, they could become the Aunorante Sangh again and the Reclamation would become a war. Basq gathered his raw conclusions together and opened the line to Ambassador Ivale. This could not wait. The terminal would assemble his conclusions into a report and transmit it to Ivale while Basq continued to work.
Basq sighed inwardly. The easy work was done and the obvious conclusions drawn. Now came the test. Could he, from the available information, infer what patterns of resistance, if any, would be displayed by the artifacts remaining on the Home Ground? There was a wealth of carefully collected satellite data available, but the Historical committees had encountered difficulties interpreting it. There was no guarantee that he could successfully integrate Eric Born’s observed behavior into that greater, less well understood picture…Basq leaned forward and set to work.
Caril watched Basq hunch over the boards again. He was going to need a muscle relaxant before he slept, or his shoulders would be aching in the morning. She file
d the thought away in the part of her memory that kept her household lists. She flicked her gaze toward the Witness. Winema had her camera eye trained on Basq, but her unaugmented eye took in the entire room, including Caril.
Keeping her face impassive, Caril rose and stepped through the privacy barrier. She moved carefully between the Beholden’s work stations. Since she did not stop to give any of them instructions, none of them gave her a glance. She looked back at the feverish, ordered activity that she had organized and allowed herself an inner smile. There was not one flaw here, not one thing out of place or left undone. It would run smoothly without her supervision for hours.
Caril left her home and crossed the park. The choreographers ignored her as she passed them, preferring to continue their argument about balance and light and shadow than to politely acknowledge another resident of the deck. The Imperialist treatise still glowed in green on the wall. She didn’t read it. She knew quite well what it said.
The corner of the park farthest from her door held a single user terminal. She sat in front of it and ran her hands across the board, shuffling the keypads into the position she wanted. According to public law, these terminals were unmonitored and couldn’t be traced, so you could say anything here, place any text or recording you wanted to in them. In truth, Caril knew, they were almost as tightly secured as Basq’s terminal was.
There were, however, ways to confuse the system. First she composed a message to the market vendors to order dinner for the Beholden and the family. Her own terminal had been co-opted by Basq’s team, so for now all the household work would have to be done from the public lines. Apart from the list, she recorded the other news briefly. Jahidh needed to know what had happened so he could plan his next move.
Then Caril arranged the keys into their new patterns with an ease that came from long practice. She waited a few heartbeats and arranged them again. Her news would flit through every park aboard the Grand Errand, bouncing back and forth for hours in the crowded lines before it finally hit a transmission point where it could be released from the internal lines and start on its real journey.