The self-icons were intimidating, all right. A crowd of unstoppable old ladies gathered in the central holo near the main cluster, ready to go forth and find more room for the growing model.
Then, just as she was about to unleash them, the bottom fell out.
If there really had been such a thing as direct mind-to-machine linkage, Jen might have died at that moment. Even connected by mere holo screens and subvocal, she felt it as a physical blow. In the span of three heartbeats, everything in her console was sucked out and sent streaming along high-rate data lines toward… heaven only knew where!
Her breath caught as she watched in utter dismay. Her surrogates, her subroutines, her colleagues’ comments — the whole damned model poured away like bath water down a thirsty drain! The intricate, interlaced patterns that only moments ago had surrounded her now whirled and vanished into an awful hole.
Nearly last to go was her tiger. Yowling in complaint, it dug in its claws, laying phosphor trails across one screen after another as it was dragged toward the abyss.
From the far left, another simulated creature entered into view as the tiger left — this one larger and even more stunningly formidable. In an instant’s numb understanding Jen knew this to be the software entity her cat had been fighting — a thing that had gotten in at last, only to be swept along with everything else into the void. The fearsome dragon hissed and roared at her, waving a glittering scorpion’s tail as that bizarre suction hauled it, too, into oblivion.
Jen blinked. In a half moment it was over. She punched reset keys, and instantly her displays came alight again, but not a shred of her own work remained. Instead there shone great glowing swathes of the Earth’s interior — the cutaway view used by the resonator team.
So this was no power failure. It hadn’t struck the Tangoparu group’s programs, only hers!
“Kenda!” she screamed. “What have you done!”
Memory. She vaguely recalled Kenda demanding back the computer caches she’d borrowed. Why, the awful man must have taken it on himself to seize it, sending her model straight to Hades in the process!
“You bastard, Kenda. When I get my hands on you…”
For the first time in hours she drew her eyes away from the screens and peered around the console toward where the others kept watch over mere magma and mantle, crust and core. The big resonator glistened, suspended in its friction-less bearings. Lights shone at all the other stations.
But there was no one in sight. No living human being.
“Kenda?… Jimmy?… Anybody?” She swept off the subvocal and was suddenly immersed in real sound again. Foremost came a loud whoop-whoop she recalled hearing once before, back when she and the Kiwis had first set up in these abandoned mines, when Kenda had insisted on running all those bloody drills.
The evacuation alarm.
She found it hard to think, having been ripped so untimely out of a deep and glorious meditative state. Jen mourned her beautiful model. So it was only with passing seconds that she managed to concentrate on more immedi-ate concerns… like why Kenda and the others had departed so abruptly.
Everything looked peaceful enough. She smelled no smoke…
Jen’s gaze roved the empty chamber, stopping at last on the holo in front of her — now depicting Earth’s innards rife with glowing traceries and arcane symbols. In another moment she understood why the others had run away.
A gazer pulse packet… heading this way. Seconds ticked down inevitability with four nines’ probability.
Even in her distracted state, Jen had had enough experience watching Kenda’s operation to perceive how three previously unknown resonators had banded together, taking the Kiwis by surprise, overcoming their belated resistance. It didn’t take many blowups to see where the gargantuan output would strike once whoever-it-was found just the right resonance.
In fact, gravity waves were coursing through this space even as she sat here! They weren’t coupling with ordinary surface matter yet — only a few frequencies and impedances did that. But soon a matching would be found. No wonder Kenda and the others had departed!
Jen watched loops and spires flicker three thousand kilometers below, where minerals and metals mixed and separated at the planet’s most violent interface. In the holo tank, great molten-electric prominences took on gauzy textures. Threads of ephemeral superconductivity throbbed and Beta’s brittle gleam waxed and waned in tempo to this arrogant human meddling.
Jen grunted at the irony. That’s where all my work went… Kenda must have taken everything in the computer and just poured it down the resonator all at once, in a vain attempt to stop them.
When that failed, he ordered everyone out.
She chuckled suddenly. Even a near miss by those unknown enemies should collapse these tottering mine shafts. Kenda and the others might escape in time, but it was clearly too late for her now.
I guess in all the panic, no one bothered with that irritating old woman in the corner, the one always making a nuisance of herself. See, Wolling? I told you bad habits can be fatal!
The resonator hummed, apparently still linked to all the furious activity below.
Well, I might as well get the best seat in the house, she thought, and picked up her subvocal again. Let’s see just what kind of a finish Mother has in store for me.
□ Hey, wait a nano! Any of you catch that? I thought all this gor-sucking inside the Earth was supposed to stop!
Yeah, I know… But one of my ferrets just squirt-faxed news of a raft of new boggles! Here blokes, copy this… Yeah, from some new spots, too. It’s spreading like cancer-IV!… Good idea. Let’s split and scurt-recomb at this nexus in ten min. Lensman, you check the online seismic databases. Yamato-Girl, see what your eavesdrop-prog at the U.N. is picking up. Boris can quick-scan open media while Diamond taps the NorA ChuGa Rumor Center. I’ll find out what the other hack groups have picked up… Right. Maybe the greeners know something too.
Agreed? Then squirt it!
• BIOSPHERE
Nelson worried about the termites.
Specifically, for several days the hives inside the ark had been acting strangely. Instead of sending forth twisty files of workers in search of decaying organic matter, the insects scurried near their tapered mounds, frantically reinforcing them with fresh mud from countless tiny mandibles. It was the same on all levels of ark four. Nelson had reported first signs on Thursday, then had to wait for Dr. B’Keli’s scientists to analyze his samples. Finally, as he came on shift today, one of the departing day workers told him. “Termites, like fire ants, are very sensitive to electric fields,” the young woman entomologist told him. “They can feel variations you or I would never notice without instruments.
“Tomorrow we’ll go looking for a short circuit,” she added with a smile. “Want to come early and join us? I’m sure you’ll find it interesting.”
Interesting might be one word for it. She was young, pretty, and Nelson felt suddenly awkward. “Uh, maybe,” he answered, imaginatively.
During his nightly rounds with Shig and Nell, he kept wondering about that look in her eyes. Looks can deceive, of course, even when interpreted truly. Still, he decided he would come in early tomorrow.