A new icon had appeared on her main v-display; one showing a glyph indicating it “belonged” to her set of resources. There was no description and only a generic symbol with the identifier 3^3 3 attached. Curious, Anderssen queried the storage available and then sat back in surprise when the node responded with a long string of nines. That is… a hell lot of crystal lattice, she thought, impressed. Is this the public storage cloud on the Naniwa? No, it would have a serial number and description and all sorts of wonky detail…
Now concerned, she flipped from the logical view she’d been operating through to a physical resource diagram and then stared over at the corroded bronze block. “You?” she said aloud, startled. The protocol mapping algorithm had apparently completed, determining that the device did have storage available and there was some kind of pathway to allow access.
Gretchen’s first instinct was to yank out the octopus and sever the connection. But then, when her fingers touched the cable, her eyes drifted back to the long string of nines and all of the raw storage they represented. I could build a nice dataset with all of those probes feeding in… I wonder how fast it can process?
A little guiltily she glanced over at Hummingbird, who seemed entirely oblivious to her activities. His face seemed remote and unapproachable and the click-click-click of his stylus was swift and sure, the patter of hail on a tin roof in a high country storm.
One step at a time, she decided, and reconfigured the octopus to allow only one-way communication. At least, she thought, I can store all of the data right now, then disconnect from the probes before someone notices I’ve hijacked them. That would be prudent.
Five minutes later the first of the probes was unspooling its history log across the ’net and into the bronze block at a very reasonable speed. Watching the performance metrics built into her comp, Anderssen realized after about ten minutes that the limiting factor on the transfer was the octopus itself, which had not been designed for moving such enormous volumes of data.
I’m going to short the poor thing out. What else do I have available?…
Her stylus tapped through a series of panes, looking for alternate methods of transfer, and on the fourth one she paused, eyebrow rising, to see that node 3^3 3 had registered twenty-seven wireless access ports, all open and unsecured. I wonder… will stellarcast let me multichannel onto this device? Gretchen poked around some more, cursing at the arcane interface for the shipnet, until she figured out how to assign the data feeds from the sixty-plus probes across all the available access ports. Then she tapped a GO icon and sat back.
All of the probe data was loaded nine minutes later.
Anderssen blinked, smoothed back her straight blond hair, and got up to get a kaffe.
Well, well, well, she mused, pouring instacream into the black liquid. Now how to model all this and find the keyhole I need, or the shape of this… or, or… Gretchen hissed in frustration. When she held a physical object in her hands-potsherds, a broken mechanism, a bone-something would usually suggest itself to her, some clue or guide to its proper purpose. But in the comp system? There was a disconnect between the object-or truly the data trying to describe the object-and her ability to grasp its totality.
I can’t go EVA and touch the damned thing. She felt daunted. I have to figure this one out the old way.
Across the room, Hummingbird stirred, his eyes focusing on her as though from a great distance. “How very interesting,” he said. “It would seem the Prince has arrived with no Judge or Mirror oversight. No Seeking Eye commissars, no political officers.”
Gretchen gave him a look over the rim of her kaffe cup. “A Prince of the realm, riding the finest steed in the land, with not the slightest restraint on his activities? What a marvelous adventure for him!”
“For all of us, I fear,” Hummingbird muttered, producing a small paper wrapper from his mantle. He withdrew two small white tablets and placed one of them under his tongue. “Curious-there is only a skeleton crew aboard the Tlemitl. Barely enough men to operate her.”
“That many fewer to share the loot.” Anderssen sat back down, scratching her ear, attention already sliding away into this new puzzle.
“Abominations!” Hummingbird exclaimed in outrage as he peered at one of the v-panes. “I’m bumped out.”
“Oh, you’ll get back in, eventually,” Gretchen assured him. “You are a nauallis, after all.”
“ Anderssen…” Hummingbird finally looked at her directly and the shock of meeting his dark eyes drew her full attention. “Have you considered what it means to encounter, to experience a First Sun device?”
Gretchen laughed bitterly. “You mean, will fame and fortune go to my head? Isn’t your whole purpose to make sure that no one realizes such a thing has even been encountered? There’s no fortune there, for me, and certainly no fame.”
The old man shook his head slowly. “Such things are only the shell, only the surface of the matter.” He pointed with his chin and Anderssen looked down, surprised to find the corroded bronze block in her hands.
“Your ability to use such things imperils your very humanity. You must tread very softly.”
“This? This is just a computer-one of the tools at our command. Do you think using tools threatens anyone’s humanity?”
He nodded. “The men who devised the first rifle, or machine gun, or thermonuclear bomb let go of something innate in themselves. Then those who used them left all pretense of humanity behind. How”-he paused, searching for the right words-“how can even a warrior countenance the death of an enemy he has not faced, met eye to eye, and traded blows with in the circle? Anything else is murder. I would say that a murderer has abandoned the common thread which ties us all together.”
Anderssen squinted, wondering if the Crow was mocking her, then shook her head. “None of those atrocities were initiated by the tools -the rifle, the machine gun, the bomb only had the misfortune to fall into the hands of men who had already decided upon atrocity.”
Then she set the block down, picked up her stylus, and returned to her work.
Hummingbird became quite still, seeing that the European woman had turned her back on him. He watched her intently for nearly thirty minutes, but Gretchen’s attention was wholly devoted to building a new analysis model. Apparently satisfied by what he’d seen, the old Crow returned to his own efforts, and the hours passed by in quiet save for the clicking of their styluses on the control surfaces.
At length, Hummingbird pushed away from his comp-breathed out a deep, long sigh-and stared for a moment at the pale blue wall behind his still oblivious companion. “The dreadnaught’s shipnet is using an unknown encryption and security system. Not only is it unfamiliar to my tools, but it seems impervious to investigation.”
Gretchen made no sign she had heard. Hummingbird scratched the back of his head and surveyed the rest of their cabin. Conversationally, he said: “There are the afterimages of cranes in flight, etched into this ceiling. A former tenant must have needed at least the illusion of the homeworld to ease his mind.”
Still Anderssen ignored him. The nauallis grimaced and rose, swaying a little. After two cups of thickly sugared kaffe he found steadier footing. Then he sat down on the edge of his bunk and unwrapped a threesquare. Even when he’d finished, the Swedish woman was still hard at work.
Experimentally, he said: “The Tlemitl is one of the Emperor’s personal ships-long rumored but never proven. Never have I encountered an Imperial system which could resist my overrides. Always before, the Judges have contrived to know what transpired in Imperial Space. Things are now afoot to which we are not privy. Shall even the Judges shine dim beside the Tlaltecutli, the Lord of the Earth? Surely the human race would be at insupportable risk if we cannot penetrate new secrets as they arise! We must get inside this mystery box that is the Firearrow. ”