Pathfinder (31 page)

“Can anyone use those Minoan—things, or just you, Ms. Kedros?” Ensign Walker asked, revealing the reach of the Terran intelligence-gathering machine. He was probably only a shift behind her and Matt, reading reports on their meeting—and whatever Ensign Walker knew, SP Parmet knew.

“I don’t know.” Ariane glanced at Matt, who was frowning. Perhaps he was wondering where Walker got his information. On the other hand, it wasn’t a bad idea to have an informed Walker doing the investigation. “I need to speak to the Minoans, as well as go through Dr. Lee’s notes.”

Ensign Walker walked off with Matt to examine the vents and the trail of nutrient solution. When they were on the far side of the lab, she tried to call Owen Edones. His queue was still blocked for the audit. She tried Sergeant Joyce next. His queue wasn’t blocked and by his status, he shouldn’t be out of his clinic room, but all his calls were going directly to recorded queue. Where was he?

She chewed her lip. She’d like some advice because she was flying blind here, but leaving information on his queue was unwise. “Call me when you can, Joyce,” was all she said.

 

Joyce had purposely put his calls on hold. He was casually sitting on a bench outside Recreation Room Three, with his hated walker to his left and burly Captain Floros seated on his right. Neither was in uniform and they blended in with the off-duty crowd, which was restive because the ICT sessions were now closed and they’d lost their free entertainment.

“Why do you think he’s going to pass on information this afternoon?” Joyce asked, watching a Feed correspondent try to provoke an “emotional” moment out of some hydroponics workers.

“Because he just discovered the Weapons Demand Schedule Backup.” Floros’s voice was silky with satisfaction.

Joyce squinted as he pushed his brain. “I don’t remember that one. It’s a log? Of what?”

“Of nothing. But what sort of Ships’ Information Control Officer would I be if I didn’t point out to the auditor the
lack
of a Weapons Demand Schedule
Log
, when there was a backup with that name?”

Joyce laughed. “Myron immediately assumed incompetence or treachery. Someone must have erased the original, right?”

“After Myron checked his list of logs, he fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. He demanded a copy and I said I wasn’t familiar with this log, but I suspected it contained ship—”

“Performance data? You’re scary, Captain, when you set your sights on someone. But what if they don’t use the same drop as before?”

“That’s where the dogs come in—and Myron’s stinginess,” Floros said. “There’s only one medium he can be using. Crystal would be outrageously expensive, the log is too big for implants, so that leaves portable discs and sticks. I know Myron uses ship’s stock for the audit copies, but I suspect his own copies go on stock also, so he doesn’t have to buy his own. I’ve carefully contaminated the supply discs and sticks with one of Xena’s special colognes.”

“He could have his own stash. They’re pretty small.”

“Granted, I’m taking a chance. I checked supply and found he’s requested a couple discs here and there, but he’s kept the number small, hasn’t even requisitioned a whole box. When he’s making the official audit copy, he asks his escort for a disc—and I handed him one with a drop of the scent on it.”

Joyce frowned. “So you’re contaminated.”

“I beg your pardon, Sergeant.” But Floros smiled. “I rubbed myself down with a soap the dog handler recommended, and I’ve changed clothes. That scent sticks to everything, your hands, your pockets, anything you touch—so I spent a long time steaming.”

“Hope Myron takes the bait.”

“And soon. With the ICT and audit both winding down, we don’t have much time.”

Neural probes were first used, near the end of the war, by the fledgling Terran Bureau of Intelligence [
link to
TEBI, under leadership of Isrid S. Parmet
]. It’s difficult to detect use of neural probes after the subject’s tissues have healed in the area near the brain stem. . . .

—
Dr. Diotrephes
, testimony to Senatorial Subcommittee on Intelligence, 2105.302.10.05 UT, indexed by
Democritus 8
under Metrics Imperative

 

 

 

A
fter Lee Pilgrimage was taken to the clinic, Ariane tried to go through her notes with the help of a battlefield medic, courtesy of Sergeant Pike. Specialist Dimitriou didn’t have an advanced medical degree, but he had a pragmatic, unassuming manner and a quick mind.

“I’m better at immediate aid and trauma surgery, ma’am,” Dimitriou confessed. “This xenografting is beyond me.”

“The fact you know the word ‘xenograft’ puts you ahead of all of us.” She smiled at him. “I hear you trained with one of the manufacturers of
our
implants.”

“This is way ahead of stuffing a chip or mike or ear bug under your skin.”

With Dimitriou’s help, she located the tissue grafting test results, which looked quite successful. Only one implant had been used for tissue grafting. The other was the control, and was now missing. But was it even usable?

“There’s not going to be a problem with your body rejecting their implant.” He glanced at the display of their surviving visitor, looking healthier every hour and starting to ripple, and a queasy expression settled on his face. “Are you sure you want to put that thing in your body?”

Following his glance, she said, “No, I’m not sure. But right now, I’m more worried about getting it
out
of my body. I asked Dr. Lee to look into that, specifically.”

“I think I saw some log entries about removal. Maybe I can find them.” He went back to digging through the lab’s data stores. Because the Beta Priamos labs were to be used by separate companies, each lab had independent processors, data stores, and security protocols, all firewalled away from ComNet.

Ariane looked through logs tracking usage, trying to see if anyone other than Lee had accessed the lab data in the past few days. She found no evidence the system had been hacked, although it had been used early on first shift—but Lee had been in early. Unfortunately, she was no Captain Floros and she might not see the subtle signs of infiltration.

Time had marched on; it was well into second shift and she needed some sleep. “I have to testify tomorrow before the ICT, so I’ve got to get rest. You’re welcome to keep looking through this data,” she told Dimitriou. “Remember that it has to be protected under the nondisclosure agreement you signed.”

“I’d like to dig through Dr. Lee’s earlier notes and compare them to the work she did today, before her seizure.” Everyone now referred to today’s episode as Lee’s “seizure.” Then Dimitriou reminded her of Lee’s other duties. “I also have to run periodic checks and tests on the birth chambers and their contents.”

Their contents
. Ariane nodded, feeling disconcerted. They were both Autonomists, so they weren’t used to seeing past the shiny machine fronts to the human beings that would emerge, but at least Dimitriou hadn’t forgotten their presence or Dr. Lee’s paramount duties.

As Ariane left the lab, she knew she’d have to challenge Contractor Director about the gray areas of using their technology, and she needed to do it without Matt or David Ray present. Her instincts told her the Minoans were less likely to hedge when they were alone with her. However, she didn’t know how to make an appointment with Contractor Director, who resided in an amoebalike ship that suckled at one of the station’s class C docks. Setting a destination of “Knossos-ship,” she sent a message asking Contractor Director to meet her near its dock at oh eight hundred tomorrow, well before her testimony. She hoped the Minoans would receive and understand her message.

The next morning she cautiously approached the dock that supported Knossos-ship, having not received any answer. The docking ring, in this area of the station, was silent and deserted. As she walked over the ring rise and came in sight of the dock, she saw the tall red figure standing patiently, its robe slowly stirring. Initially, she thought the emissary was alone, but saw two guardians several meters away, watching the docking area.

“I await your questions, Explorer of Solar Systems.” The Minoan emissary bowed its horns as she approached. It sounded slightly smug.

She sighed and looked about, uncertain how to start the conversation. The docking area behind Contractor Director gave her shivers, because the Minoan ship had forced fleshy extensions into and out of the station’s airlocks. Through the open airlocks, she saw the wall of “solid soup” that Matt had called the Minoan mechanism for containing pressure. Of course, Matt would disapprove of her meeting the Minoans alone.

“Perhaps you’ve heard of the problems that Physician of—of My Choice encountered, and the disappearance of one of your implants,” she began, warily steering her way through the pitfalls of Minoan interaction.

“We are aware of the replacement of Physician of Your Choice. Will you need another implant for testing?”

She paused in surprise; they could flip around pronouns in long names correctly, but they couldn’t handle short names like “Lee.” She shook her head. “I don’t know if we need more implants for testing. I’ll check. More important, I have to ask you if
anyone else but me
can use one of these implants?”

“You mean another human?”

This conversation was already proceeding at the speed of oil spreading in the cold of space. She repressed a childish urge to stomp her foot. “Yes, I mean another
human
, different from Explorer of Solar Systems, with different DNA coding and biochemistry.”

This seemed to cause some thought on Contractor Director’s part, as the tall figure went still for several moments. It finally stirred and said, “We project disastrous results if another human, other than Explorer of Solar Systems, attempts to pilot damaged N-space with the implant.”

She didn’t bother to explore the disastrous projections, since she was well aware of the hazards of N- space. That wasn’t the important issue. “What about the homing functions for finding your ‘seed’ archive?”

“We are uncertain that the function will work correctly in another organism.” Contractor Director cocked its head slightly, although the movement increased at the tips of its horns and caused the cascading ropes of jewels to sway and sparkle. “If you suspect the missing implant may be found and used by another human, I remind you that the final implant will have adjustments for your biochemistry.”

“What if the implant isn’t missing, but
stolen
?”

“Then you have a competitor for finding our property, and this concerns us,” Contractor Director said gravely.

“Can we scan for the implant?”

“It will appear similar to human muscular tissues, whether it’s been implanted or not.”

She chewed her lip. Biological matter was hard to detect and
differentiate
with stationary scanners, let alone portable ones. She knew, from personal experience, that Minoans and their weapons defeated human scanning devices all the time—perhaps for this very reason.

Of course, she might be worrying for nothing. The Minoans weren’t sure that anyone else could use it, and the implant was useless unless it got to the Builders’ solar system. They could physically search the
Pytheas
, do background checks on the final forty people chosen to crew it, and perform tedious physical searches on everything loaded on the ship. That assumed the person hadn’t already put it inside their body.

“Does the implant have a limited lifespan? Maybe it’ll be dissolved into the body? If so, then all we have to do is wait.”

“No. If the implant is kept under optimal conditions, it can live as long as its host. Besides, we cannot afford to wait.” Contractor Director’s voice, neither female nor male, was uncharacteristically forceful.

“Live as long as its host, huh?” She caught that, as well as the comment on waiting. Closing her eyes for a moment, she remembered the feeling of warmth she had when the implant had touched her skin, almost a welcoming feeling, like she was encountering a part of her separated self. “If I choose to install an implant, how difficult will it be to remove?”

“Section 241.55 in the manual describes removal.”

“You’re avoiding the direct answer.” She stared up at the mask of darkness under the headdress. “You’re required, under our contractual law, to provide me an assessment of risk. That includes an evaluation of successful removal.”

It took another invocation of Autonomist law to finally get a grudging response from the Minoan. “There is a ninety percent chance that biochemical responses will inhibit the host’s urge for removal, and a forty-one percent chance that surgical removal, the preferred method, will not adequately remove all the implant’s cells.”

She took a moment to digest this, her jaw tightening. “You’re saying I probably won’t
want
to remove it—but even if we try, we might not remove it entirely?”

“An imprecise summary, but yes.”

There was no sound of human life in that part of the station. Command Post had put the Minoans on the opposite side of the docking ring from everyone else. No one wanted to be near them, or to have their ships near them. The creaks and pops of the station’s structure became much more obvious as her brain wound through arguments, pro and con, regarding the Minoans’ offered technology.

“This would be the time to tell me the
real reason
why I should risk using your implant.” Her voice was tight. “You’ve tried to motivate me through the reward of exploration and the thrill of risk—what
else
do you want to lay upon me? What are you hiding?”

“You cannot pass on this information, even to Owner of Aether Exploration. We need your most solemn oath.”

Barely holding on to her temper, she made the promise, unwisely and flippantly. “By Gaia and by my oath as an AFCAW officer, I swear I will not pass this information to anyone.”