04. Birth of Flux and Anchor (11 page)

"The Anchors aren't that simple," he responded. "They are what we call them. Anchors. Templates, or patterns, for an entire region. When we work there, we have to build null energy barriers to keep the surrounding Flux from coming back in and to allow some sort of normal air flow and circulation. We'll need them developed as quickly as possible, yet, if we make any serious errors there, and then have a substantial population in place, we'll have no good way of correcting those errors. I am most uncomfortable with this speedup. It will require far too much expediency from my people."

"They'll do it," van Haas said confidently. "You'll find a way to have them do it. We will live
with what we've got. Develop the nexus region at the outset, then develop the Anchors in sectors until we have a working ecosystem in each. Then we'll worry about how they tie together."

"I do not share your confidence," said the Kenyan.

"I do not have your time," responded the director. "Sadira, you're the only one now who hasn't said a word. Comment?"

The sari-clad Indian Chief of Administration sat as impassively as always through the deliberations, just making certain that everything was being recorded. Now she looked up at them. "I think I am hearing a lot of nervous babies," she said at last, her tone very patronizing. "I think that there is only one question for voting here. Either we go, or we shut down. I would like to know which. Either way, all of us will have a lot of work to do in a very short time. I for one would rather go now than have to begin learning Russian or Chinese."

There was more discussion, but it got them nowhere, and van Haas cut it off and decided to force a vote.

"I see four in the affirmative and two in the negative," the director said ceremoniously. "There being no tie, I don't need to vote, but I wish to be on record in the affirmative myself. That leaves only the question of the two nays. Suzy, I can ill afford to lose you, but it must be your decision. If your decision is to terminate, then I would appreciate a recommendation on a successor, preferably from your own team."

She looked sullen. "Let me think about it today."

He nodded. There wasn't much else he could have expected right now. "And you, Ken? The same goes."

"I will come," the landscape engineer said without much expression. "Not because I believe we can succeed under these conditions, but out of sheer egotism. My department is the weakest, and I do not want it to fail because I did not go along."

That pleased the rest of them.

"Fair enough," the director noted. "Now, here's the schedule we've more or less got to keep. I'll have copies made up tonight and these can be distributed to your department heads by you personally in meetings tomorrow. They can then take it down to the staff.

"A field test of the first ship, using Gate Five, will commence at eleven hundred hours Friday—five days from now. If it succeeds, and if it returns and checks out, we will send in the initial 7800's seven days after that to establish Engineering, followed fourteen days later by the initial ground Operational Group. It'll be mostly military, but, Ken, I'd like you and a few of your best to go along—the five crew anyway. As much as practical, we'll test out Gate One the same way, interleaving trips with Five, then repeat the procedure. Sadira, that'll be your people, so we have a functioning headquarters of sorts. Then we'll develop Two, Three, Four, Six, and Seven, in that order, depending on our initial results with One and Five and the availability of personnel, material, and equipment. I would like to be first, but I am forced by my position to be last."

He paused, trying to get control of his emotions. Finally, he said, "It was seven years ago that the last of us came to this barren rock, and our anticipated ten-year stay has been shortened to seven. I don't know what awaits us. It could be misery. It could be failure. It could be paradise. I suspect it's something none of us have yet dreamed or will dream. But, by God! I am ready to have a go at it!"

There were few working in the Transport Research lab now; most of the best technicians were up the line at the big Borelli Point out beyond Pluto working on the real, not the theoretical. That made the lab section ideal for Marsha Johnson and Jimmy Okieda, who finally found someplace private enough in the wee hours to do a little fooling around.

It was nothing serious. She was no glamour girl, but not hard to look at, and he was of a station beneath her in the scientific hierarchy—a mere corporal in Logistics, barely out of his teens, too low to even be up at the Point. Such liaisons were common among base personnel, most of whom did not have families or long attachments, particularly on the junior levels.

They were quite well along on the office floor, with all but the emergency lights off, and so they didn't see or hear her come in, nor was she aware of their presence.

Dr. Susan Watanabe was dressed and made up so differently that it was impossible to tell right off that it was indeed the division chief. She had found, or pulled out of old storage or something, a traditional kimono of fine silk, black in color, and she'd cut and shaped her hair and made up her face so that she looked almost like someone out of
The Mikado.
Tied to her waist was a small ornamental short sword in a fine-tooled scabbard, a keepsake and heirloom handed down to her as the last in her family. She had often showed it off to associates, and told them that it had been in her family for more than two hundred and fifty years.

She paused a moment in the darkness, more meditating than reflecting, then went silently over to the master computer controls. She did not need the lights; she knew this place better than she knew her own body.

She went to the Guard's chair and sat in it. Unlike the Overrider, this position could be activated on its own, by just one person, since it could not access the files of nor receive the commands from the master computer beneath the laboratory. It was built to do only one thing, and that's all she wanted it to do.

Deliberately, she lowered the helmet onto her head and adjusted the probes. The computer switched on its external interface, read her brain wave and identity patterns, and confirmed that she was authorized.

"Guard post on. Overrider position is vacant. No transaction,"
it reported to her mind.

"Derangement in master computer determined by independent monitors after last run,"
she told it.
"Emergency deacti-vation procedures in effect, please."

The Guard computer hesitated. While it was not an improper request, it was certainly an unprecedented one, and its own monitors not only had revealed nothing but told it that there was no imperative for speed. It was not that easy to do what she was attempting, even with all the proper clearances and codes. The Guard's programming and its own thinking processes, while primitive by the standards of the Kagan 7240 it oversaw, were not only to prevent a big computer running amok but also to prevent sabotage.

"Command reasoning insufficient,"
it told Watanabe.
"No empirical evidence supports this command. Confirmation is required by higher authority. Shall 1 confirm?"
It was being nice to her, giving her a chance to back out before it blew the whistle.

She was calm and undisturbed, and confident she had prepared well for this years ago.
"Understood. Check with corporate center for authority of operator."

It was accomplished in the speed of light, but the computer was still not really convinced.
"Action requested?"
it asked.

"Erasure of block memory in locations and under encryption to my authority only. No master files involved."

"Understood. Give locations and password authority."

Watanabe knew she was being strung along, and that it was only a matter of time before the Guard alerted Security. The easy way was not going to work.
"Cancel request. Guard off."

"Acknowledged."
' The computer seemed somewhat relieved.

Watanabe removed the helmet, then reached into her kimono and brought out several small cubes of some translucent material. She then went to work opening a panel in front of the Guard chair, tracing a network of cubes, pulled a certain one and replaced it with one of hers. There were several more positions in the main panel where this was done, and two in a subsidiary panel. Now she left the Guard position and went over to Overrider, then put on that helmet, which could not be activated nor in any way used without someone at Guard. It wasn't supposed to be possible to circumvent this, but even if someone were bright enough to figure it out, two keys had to be turned within one second of each other at each position to make the interface work, and the positions were on opposite sides of the semi-circular room, at least ten meters apart. One key now sat in the off position at Guard; she now inserted the other at Overrider, and as she did so the Guard's key turned as if by an invisible hand.

Instantly, she heard the sounds of many feet running toward the lab, and all the lights went on. An alarm also began to sound. She cursed softly to herself, but otherwise ignored it. She didn't have time to dwell on what she'd triggered; she just pulled the Overrider helmet down on her head and discovered with satisfaction that there was in fact a computer link.

The two trysters in the back office were startled out of their fun by all the commotion and hastily began putting their clothes back on and then trying to figure out if they should try to duck out of there or just keep quiet. There was a small window looking out onto the lab and computer-control center from the office, though, and once they'd regained some measure of composure they found it irresistible. Both Johnson and Okieda thought at first that they were the ones who had somehow caused all this, but one look into the labs told them differently.

Soldiers converged from both sides on the small figure in the chair, soldiers armed with automatic weapons.

Bolts of electricity lashed out from the panels, catching the lead troopers and causing them to scream and drop to the floor, writhing. Watanabe was somehow doing it from the master computer.

The forces behind the fallen soldier didn't need any orders to react. They opened up with short, precise bursts on the woman in the chair. The impact of the bullets spun her around and threw her backward in the chair. Sparks flew from the helmet connection, and before Watanabe had a chance at anything, if indeed she was still alive, hands snatched the helmet away and emergency switches were thrown, deactivating both computer-to-human interfaces.

Okieda turned to Marsha Johnson, a look of horror on his face. "What do we do now?"

She was as much in shock as he was. "I don't know. Maybe you should just mix with them. One soldier more won't be noticed. I can talk my way out of it."

"You kidding? Logistics blue is a little different from Security red. Damn!"

Johnson went back and tried the rear door. It held fast, as if welded there. Okieda then tried the door to the lab, and found it much the same. "Security's sealed the building!" he told her. "We're stuck!"

Brigadier Coydt was in her quarters but not asleep, and she was immediately informed by the Security duty officer of the events so far. She threw on a shirt and pants and rushed downstairs, where an electric car was waiting to take her to the transport labs. Watanabe had been dead less than fifteen minutes by the time she arrived.

She stood there, then examined the blood-soaked body, and finally asked, "How many people know the specifics of this?"

"Just our personnel actually inside up to this point and the duty officer, ma'am," a sergeant informed her. "Maybe a dozen in all, not counting our security computer that flagged us, of course."

"I want an immediate seal on this," she ordered. "I want absolutely no one to know anything about this who doesn't already know." Her mind was racing. "Have you checked the rest of the building?"

"Doing it now, room by room and office by office. Supposedly, there are two up in that office there—or so the computer flag tells us."

She looked over in that direction and thought she could see a face peering nervously back at her, "Who are they?"

"A junior engineer who works here and some enlisted man from Logistics."

"Were they helping her?"

"No. Computer watch says they were fuck—making out, begging the brigadier's pardon."

"All right. Keep those two up there bottled up for the moment, and get me a secured line to Site K—our channels, no routing. I need some advice."

"The alarm's been heard all over the place, ma'am. Curious folk are gathering outside now. Sooner or later we're gonna get somebody big enough to bypass our lines through here. What shall I do?"

"Just get me that link!" She turned to a lieutenant just standing there, looking a little dazed. "You—what's your name?"

"Lieutenant Symmes, ma'am."

"All right, Symmes. Go down and keep that cordon
tight
until I tell you not to. Anyone, and I mean
anyone,
even the admiral or the director, makes it past you and you'll envy this woman on the floor.''

"But—what'll I tell them?"

"Tell them—tell them we caught a Soviet spy stealing master transport programs and we had to kill the agent. Tell them we can't have anyone in until we determine not only who the spy is but how much damage was done. Tell anyone asking that it's on my personal order and I'll answer to them later. Understand?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

She looked around. "Casualties?"

"Two, ma'am. Both dead."

"All right. There must be some lab clothes, something around here, that will fit one of them. Find them, get the one that fits best out of his or her uniform and into lab clothes. I'm going to need a convincing body to take past the crowd as our Soviet spy. We'll give 'em proper burial under their real names when we get them away. Understand? One soldier casualty, one dead spy."

The soldiers just stared at her for a moment. Finally, one asked, "Uh, pardon me, ma'am, but what are we going to do with
her
?"