He motioned Nayar and Gabriel to a panel. “We’ve located some kind of system status repository. It appears we have access to a multidimensional map of Keanu and its interior showing various tunnels and passages and what appears to be a transport system…” As Jaidev spoke and touched, Gabriel watched the screens. Yes, the roundish thing that was Keanu…honeycombed with cylindrical structures radiating from a cylindrical central core. There were eight of them, and Gabriel didn’t need Bynum or Jaidev to tell them these were the habitats.
Toward the bottom of that core, a spherical chamber…all of them connected by a network of lines and links that reminded Gabriel of a 3-D spiderweb.
Off to one side, near the surface of Keanu, was another chamber…smaller than the habitats or that core, oddly shaped, its purpose even less clear than that of the other structures.
Being tactile engineers, of course, Jaidev and Daksha kept changing the screens. The global map was replaced by close-in images, individual tunnels, different habitats (what had to be the human one flashed by), other hollow places.
Then an exterior showing Keanu moving in a cloud of some kind of particles or gas, like a multi-lobed comet. The cloud was so pervasive and tenuous, it was difficult to determine where it ended and empty space began.
“Is there an exterior that shows Earth?” Gabriel said. How far had they come in a week? How fast was Keanu going? How much acceleration? They likely weren’t as far as the orbit of Mars—
“We assume so,” Daksha said. “But we haven’t found the space-tracking area yet.”
“Anything is better than what we had,” Gabriel said. “Means we don’t have to depend on Brent Bynum.”
“I don’t know,” Jaidev said. “It was Bynum who pointed us to this area, including the medical section.”
Which was the main reason Gabriel kept his mouth shut when Bynum began to be annoying: He owed the man his life.
“Speaking of the Reivers,” Nayar said, “Bynum helped us understand some of the information the database has on these things.” He nodded to Jaidev.
“It’s almost as if they are the perfect evolutionary response to the conditions of the universe,” Jaidev said, unable to hide the excitement in his voice. “They can be micro- or macrobeings. They assemble into aggregates that allow them to scale up to any mass required. And all because they are pure processors, taking in energy, using it.”
“They are essentially information,” Daksha said.
Just then Xavier Toutant rushed up the ramp. He was out of breath and his face was sweaty, as if he’d just made a long run.
“We tried all the poisons,” he said. “Both chemicals. We tried fire.”
“Slow down,” Nayar said.
“Some of the stuff just rolled off them. We were the only ones getting poisoned!”
“What do you mean?” Jaidev said. He took the news personally. Like a good general, Gabriel thought.
“It was like pouring gasoline on a fire…. There were more bugs afterward than when we started!”
Nayar was holding up his hand. “Nothing has worked, is that what you’re saying?”
“That’s impossible!” Jaidev said. He headed for the ramp, as if determined to check out this ridiculous story for himself.
Nayar said, “If he says our weapons failed, they failed! The intelligent option is to find better ones.”
“And quickly,” Gabriel added. He smiled. “How do you kill…what did you say the Reivers were? ‘Pure information’? How do you kill that?”
“With different information,” Jaidev said, almost grumbling. But Daksha touched him on the arm, as if to say, Let’s think about this.
The two immediately moved off to confer.
“I have a lot of confidence in your team, Vikram.”
“I hope it’s not misplaced.”
“They’ve worked wonders so far,” he said, his tone far lighter than his mood. “As we were coming up here, you said you had something important to show me?”
Nayar immediately walked up to the panel showing the Keanu schematic. He tapped on the screen, zooming in for a closer view of one of the passages between two habitats.
There were five indicators in the passage, all clumped together, four small and one large.
“We’ve located Rachel, Pav, and Zhao,” Vikram Nayar announced. “At least, we’re fairly sure this is them. We have some ability to roll back the image, and were able to walk these indicators back through that habitat”—he pointed at the one invaded by Reivers—“then back, back, back to what appears to be ours.”
He traced his finger through a series of turns and twists that covered a third of the distance across the NEO.
“Wow. They’ve gone a long way,” Gabriel said. “How did you hear from them? Direct voice?”
“Close-up imagery.”
“Security camera?”
“A system that compares to our security cameras the way this”—Nayar pointed to the cabinets and their mysterious readouts and equipment—“compares to a nineteenth-century factory.”
“Can’t wait to talk to them. I hope they’re safe.”
“It appears so,” Nayar said, “to the extent that any of us are safe.” Having grown more at home with the displays—or tired of Jaidev’s super-fast changes, like a deranged husband with a TV remote—Nayar began to manipulate the images on the screen, bringing up a new version of the Keanu interior.
As Nayar’s finger slid over the various habitats, each exploded into a larger view that showed hundreds, likely thousands of small indicators, most of them in motion.
“Notice this discoloration? You saw it in tunnels and habitats.”
There were smears of a different color through one entire habitat, effectively eliminating any individual Markers, at spots in several others, and through a good percentage of the tunnel and passage network.
“Alien graffiti.”
“Reiver infection,” Nayar said. “It’s not just their presence. It’s interference. We’re suffering from it, too. We lost all data for several minutes. And the interruptions are coming more frequently.”
“Well, we know we have to eradicate them. That’s what we’re doing, right?” Gabriel tried to sound cheery; it was one of the handiest items in his managerial toolbox. But he felt sick, because he knew that scrubbing the bugs from the human habitat was a small step.
“They seem to be on the march,” Nayar said, “the infection spreading toward one particular zone.”
“It’s not a habitat?”
“It’s got a different shape, and it’s closer to the surface. We just don’t know.”
“But you figure it can’t be good.”
“There’s another thrust toward the core,” Nayar said. “Which we know to be the power sources.”
“Okay, sum up for me, in case I have to explain it to Drake and Weldon—”
“The Reivers are close to taking over the entire NEO.”
Gabriel closed his eyes. None of this was exactly a surprise—the moment he had seen the Reiver infection on the Keanu map he had realized it was a serious problem. It was still troubling to hear it stated.
Then he looked at the indicators. “Why are there five? It was only Rachel, Taj’s boy, and Zhao who went out.”
Jaidev and Daksha returned and heard Gabriel’s question. As if testing his knowledge, Nayar said, “One of them appears to be nonhuman,” he said, indicating the various colors and displays. “Body temperature, size, mass, even speed of movement—”
“—The kinds of data Keanu routinely collects on every being here,” Jaidev added.
“—are all different.”
“Okay, then, there’s one alien and four humans. Who’s the fourth?”
“Uh, the message,” Jaidev said, “indicated it was your daughter, Yvonne.”
DALE
“Double back,” Zack told them.
They had just snaked their way through the collection of rounded structures that Dale Scott immediately thought of as Crapville, right to the point where they could see Dash ahead of them…and a clear Beehive-like opening in front of him.