Chapter 12
Professor Long sat behind a desk piled with papers that were being nuzzled by the weak breeze of a small electric desk fan. He was wearing a striped shirt open at the collar and had his sleeves rolled up.
So this is what a fully floated professor looked like. Arianne couldn’t help stare in wonder at the long, sharp prism on the desk. It displayed his name and current affiliation. The name was straightforward, but the affiliation was a live schematic of his current affiliation portfolio on the Research Exchange Framework: the academic stock exchange. A digital display ran the length of the plaque and was divided into constantly shifting sections. Currently, around 20% of Long’s academic stock was taken up by the central hub. But the rest was divided into a hundred ways between different universities. A good quarter of his affiliation was taken up in single-stock investments. Probably community colleges in the asteroid belts trying to get their profiles boosted. Arianne noticed that a fraction of his affiliation was at the University of Io, no doubt boosting its credentials, and her own by extension. As she watched, Gliese University began aggressively expanding their share, and Long’s REF index began climbing. Arianne had heard rumours that Gliese only employed REF economists, and had no actual research staff at all. Gliese’s share was expanding to such an extent that Arianne was worried that Long would have to cancel the meeting, since his time now belonged elsewhere. But just before Gliese could become the maxium share holder, CAFCA bit back, buying bit-stocks. Behind the scene, Arianne knew that CAFCA was short-selling Gliese academics, probably ruining their careers, in an attempt to derail the take-over. In a few seconds, Gliese’s share had collapsed and its shares rippled and split into dozens of lesser universities.
Long leaned back in his wooden chair and brought his feet up to rest on the edge of the desk. He looked tiredly around his small office, as if each scrumped ball of paper and each discarded drink can would take a whole career to deal with.
Arianne disturbed his thoughts.
“Professor Long, I don’t have all century.”
He snapped back into the present moment.
“Sorry about all that sitting-on-top-of-a-burning-lake-of-silver stuff. The under- under- committee can be a bit dramatic.”
“It certainly made an impression on me.”
“Obviously less than some - it took them a while to train those birds to miss.”
Arianne exchanged a worried look with Holt, who was sitting next to her. She leaned forwards.
“The rector said there have been ten victims.”
“Hmm, yes.”
“And they were all researching cultural evolution?”
“In some form or other yes.”
Holt spoke up.
“Normally, this would be left to the local authorities, but Administration Security has taken an interest because of the … fitting nature of the deaths.”
Holt looked to Professor Long, who cleared his throat, tucked his legs back under the desk and opened a binder in front of him.
“Er yes, here are some particulars. The first case - at least the first one we know of - was a field linguist working in the next solar system over. Their TD malfunctioned and they made a legally binding euthanasia request instead of asking for the time. Another linguist was sent the proofs of his new book on language contact that were so poorly typeset and the graphs and transcriptions so badly mangled that they interfered with the software systems of the ship and it crashed into a moon.”
“Ah, well - that last one happens all the time”, said Arianne.
“It’s true that these might have been overlooked as accidents”, continued Long, “but there were more strange occurrences to follow.”
“A typologist was sent a grammar of a language that was so obtuse and elaborate, and so badly documented that the typologist was driven mad and committed suicide. The language itself couldn’t be traced and is now thought to have been constructed.”
Arianne had heard stories about this kind of thing.
“Driving people crazy with a grammar isn’t easy” said Arianne. “even if they’re already a typologist. The killer must be a linguist.”
Long nodded. “It certainly seems like an inside job, but it’s not just linguistics. For example, a plant species was genetically eradicated at the field-site of a group of ornithologists studying tool use in birds.”
“You want me to investigate plant genocide?”
“No exactly. The birds discovered that human bones made tools just as well as the plants did.”
“Ah.”
Long leafed past some technicolored photographs.
“Then there was the case of the Economist who was studying the emergence of honest signalling in primates. He claims that someone had released a shriek wolf into his house, and called the police while he barricaded himself into this bathroom. But when the police arrived, the house was empty. A week later, the same thing happened, and the week after that. The Economist moved to a hotel, but then reported that a wolf had been placed in his room.”
“I think I can see where this is going.” Said Arianne.
“After months of this, the police stopped responding, assuming he was mad. They found his body in his office, ripped to shreds.”
Arianne stole a glance at Seargent Holt, who was looked puzzled by the story.
“What about Professor Golden?” Arianne said.
Long sucked some air before explaining.
“As you know, Professor Golden was a historical linguist. She was using a super-computer to reconstruct historical splits between languages when it exploded and she was cut in half by a server blade.”
Everyone found themselves looking silently at the buzzing fan.
“She was your supervisor?” Long said,
“Yes, she got me through my PhD” said Arianne. A silence descended.
“Oh” Holt said, smiling “a wolf.”
Long and Arianne exchanged worried looks.
“Well”, said Arianne, “That range of … methods suggests that there’s a team of people. Maybe it is a conspiracy?”
“We’re not so sure”, said Holt. “The timing of the murders is consistent with a single trajectory between the planetary systems where they took place.”
“You mean it could just be one person?” Arianne slumped back in her chair. “But why? Is there any suspected motive?”
“We’re not sure. All the victims were class-5 funded, and had all received grants from the same sources, so it could be jealousy or a Grant Vendetta.”
“Is there anyone who lost out to grants from them all?”
“Very many, actually, but there’s another possibility. You’re aware that Cultural Evolution is of particular interest to CAFCA.”
Arianne was well aware. The entire infrastructure of the Administration was shaped by the complications of trying to communicate across cultural evolutionary time. For researchers, even just conveying simple meanings through the lumbering CAFCA machinery required advanced expertise in cultural evolution. The cultural evolution of funding applications was it’s own multi-space-billion credit subfield. However, it wasn’t entirely clear whether these complications were a bad thing for CAFCA. Its empire was built on releasing its massive resources through a tiny bottleneck. If applying for funding was straightforward, the whole thing would come crashing down and much of civilized space would be destabilised. Arianne shuddered to think of the size of the power vacuum that would result - what else could possibly fill it? The Bloggeration? Surely not. They were capable of impressive feats of research, but they never seemed to have much direction.
“Well, the victims were all doing special consultancy work for the Administration.” Said Holt “I’m afraid we can’t tell you much more”
“Honestly” said Arianne “I don’t want to know. What do you want me to do?”
Long began collating the papers “There is only one class-5 funded researcher left in your field. We would like you to
start your investigation with them.”
“Who is it?”
“Professor Aditi C. Sura - she has a lab here on the hub - you know her work?”
“Of course, how do I approach them?”
“Well, it’s time for their grant review, so we’ve arranged for you to be put on the panel. Don’t ask any direct questions, but we’d like to know if you find anything suspicious.”
“Like what?” asked Arianne.
Holt jumped in, a little too quickly “Whether she’s been travelling lately, maybe equipment missing or gaps in the spending. Anything that could be tied to ...”
Arianne waited.
“... other organisations.”
Ah well, thought Arianne, it was too much to ask for to be handed testable hypotheses on a plate. There was no reason to think that solving crimes would be easier than having to deal with vague theoretical linguistics problems from your supervisor.
“You have a meeting just after -” Long looked at his watch. “- the turn of the century”.
“Just enough time for lunch, then?” said Arianne, brightening up.
“I’m afraid lunch is not included” Holt said, standing up with such social gravity that Arianne felt herself also drawn to her feet.
Persister: Space Funding Crisis I Page 12