Forbidden the Stars (6 page)

It was only a matter of time before Yin and his cybergang cracked the computer’s defenses.

Yin’s young protégés created a dummy file to accept instructions from Earth, run simulation reports on those initiatives, and send those dummy reports back, keeping the Earth council ignorant and happy.

As far as things went, by the time Yin was twenty-eight he owned the moon in all but name. The wealth and power he had gathered to him rivaled that of the country corporations themselves. Every pleasure was his; every luxury was his with barely a thought.

Nothing happened on Luna Station without Chow Yin’s fingers in the pot, and the only people that knew it were those that worked for him.

Lord of his little empire, Yin watched over the comings and goings of all transients at Luna Station, had his finger on the pulse of the country-corporations who docked their shuttles and temporarily installed their people on Luna.

If Yin wanted, he could have the Luna Computer ground all outgoing flights, or restrict any incoming shuttles from any country or private corporation that displeased him. He could hold all of outer space ransom, if he chose to do so.

He did not do that, however. Discretion, he had learned from experience, was the better part of increasing one’s personal wealth.

… And information was the most powerful tool in the pursuit of that goal. He used the information he gleaned in productive ways; revenge and petty tyranny was not his business. Besides, abusing his power would only get him noticed, and he preferred to operate and luxuriate in anonymity.

The only people he let get close to him were the teens, whom he had continued to personally recruit over the past forty-odd years.

As part of his campaign to dominate Luna Station, when the last Chinese station director had rotated back to China, Yin had the computers manufacture an identity for the director’s replacement and bounce it into the Hong Kong data base. A non-person had been transferred to the moon, and the big bureaucratic machine that was the PRC did not even notice, so wrapped up in their petty politics and closed-door communistic efforts. It was a coup d’état, as far as Yin was concerned, though yet an unpublished one.

The entire Chinese Sector was firmly under his control, and the rest of the station was at his mercy.

Classified government documents were his to peruse and use as he wished, and he did so with impunity. He had corrupted the shuttle port governor, diverted tariffs and fees to his own private bank accounts, and appropriated nearly the entire budget allocated to the Chinese Sector from the PRC. So far, he had gathered a net worth that numbered in the trillions. He had invested heavily in many of the Earth nation’s private corporations; and with a little manipulation, managed to secure a healthy return on his employed capital, as well as letting him keep his thumb on the pulse of Earth industry.

As part of his daily routine, while slowly consuming breakfast, he enjoyed reading some of the top-secret government communiqués his young techowizards intercepted.

When he read one such missive directed from Earth to Pluto, he nearly choked on his orange juice.

Immediately, he rang his secretary and told him, “Call a meeting of all our top snoops. We have a new priority.”

__________

Macklin’s Rock :

SMD Mine Number 568 :

Sol System :

Asteroid Belt :

Taking a break
at noon for a bite to eat, Alex slipped off the thought-link patch and ocular caps, blinking his eyes as he focused on the small TAHU. Adults always tried to tell him that too much VR would make him go blind, but if that were true, Alex had never seen any evidence of it.

“Hucs,” he addressed the computer. Now that the thought-link patch was off, he had to vocalize his request. “Fries and cola, please.”

Alex grumbled to himself. His parents were concerned that he was not eating well enough. He felt all right, but had no choice in the matter; he had not yet figured out how to overwrite the log matrix on Hucs, so that he could override its priority codes with impunity. He decided he would have to work on that problem in the afternoon, or risk severe penalties when his parents found out he had been playing hooky again.

“Yeah, that’s fine.” When he entered the dining cubicle, his sandwich and milk were waiting for him in the booth, the replicator pre-programmed with the differing personal preferences of each of the three inhabitants. Alex liked chopped celery and onion with no extra mayonnaise, but his parents preferred lettuce as their only addition. He sat down and ate quickly, his mind not on the food, but on the problem of the log matrix.

If he wrote a sub-program slaved to the file named “Alex’s Daily Activities and Progress Chart,” then whenever his mother or father tapped in an inquiry on him, the dummy file would come up on screen over top of the legitimate file. He could then doctor the dummy file in any manner he so chose.

The problem with that was—

The TAHU alert klaxon sounded, making Alex jump in the booth.

Hucs reported.

Without delay, Alex tapped the 2D min-monitor in the booth, signaling his parents.

“Mom! Dad!” he yelled, but the monitor showed nothing but white static.

“Look out! I think it’s an asteroid!”

Leaping out of the booth, Alex raced for his cubicle. The emergency drills his parents had forced him to repeat to no end came to him like second nature.

Jumping into the security receptacle, he closed his eyes as the restraints locked around him, securing him from hitting any walls when whatever it was outside hit him.

He had the briefest of moments to speculate what was coming at him. His first though had been an asteroid, but that would not be traveling so fast. A solar flare? Unlikely, at this distance.

Sweat leaped from his forehead as panic set in.

His parents were outside, unprotected.

<…second…>

Unable to control himself, he screamed.

<…until…>

__________

St. Lawrence Charity Hall :

Ottawa :

Canada Corp.:

As Michael Sanderson
and Alliras Rainier began their first round of maneuvering tactics to corner Ian Pocatello into granting them an extra billion dollars in funding, a servochine interposed itself between the two.

The Al had been designed in the shape of a humanoid, but instead of legs, it used six rubber wheels to glide across surfaces. The wheels were attached to a rectangular box that could be customized as a refrigeration unit, a file cabinet, a tool chest, or any other kind of container required by the servochine’s programmed capacity. As a waiter, the servochine’s compartment was used to carry bottles of alcohol and spirits.

To Michael’s slight surprise, the servochine was holding a silver tray on top of which was a white plastic envelope addressed to him.

“How quaint,” the Minister of Finance commented. “A couriered message. I don’t think I’ve ever been on the receiving end of one of those, little say sending one.”

Running interference, Alliras replied, “Don’t know why we ever stopped. Couriers and fax machines were wonderful. Now, we send everything over the EarthMesh. Quite frankly, I’m not comfortable with all the techno hackers in the world having access to the digitally transmitted love letters I send to my wife from work.” Both Ian and Stall chuckled appreciatively.

Glancing at the servochine’s CPU mount as if the AI would explain its presence, Michael took the envelope, opened it and, muttering a quick “Excuse me” to the three gentlemen looking on with interest, read the lased memo on the plastic slip he found within.

*

Michael, I’m sorry to have to send this message to you considering your current circumstances, but an emergency has arisen that demands your immediate attention.

There has been a catastrophe that could undermine the entire program. The media is not yet aware of the incident, but it is only a matter of time. We need you, Michael!

—
Calbert

*

Michael looked up at Alliras, blinked, and then forced an equable smile on his face.

“Something has come up.”

“Everything all right?” Stall asked, fishing for information.

“Of course. You know SOPs: every time there’s a blip on the astrographs, they have to have it signed off.”

“A find?” Stall pressed.

Michael smiled. “If it is, I’ll make sure to send you an advance press release. And now, if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen.”

The look on Ian Pocetello’s face was a mix of concern over the emergency, and relief that he would not be corralled that night.

The timing was horrible, but Michael had to get back and assess the situation; he trusted Calbert not to exaggerate any catastrophe. If anything, his aide was apt to understate the case; and that scared years off Michael’s life. If damage control was needed, he had to get to the SMD event center quickly.

As Michael turned to go, Alliras said, “You don’t mind if I tag along?” He read the emotion on Michael’s face, and knew that the message was more important than lobbying the finance minister.

“Please do.” Michael said it as casually as he could.

Alliras motioned to one of his aides, who hurried over. “Please inform our wives we’ve been called away, and see that they get home safely.”

“Certainly, sir.” The man gave a quick nod, and hurried off.

Making apologies as they left, Michael and Alliras made their way out of the St. Lawrence Charity Hall, and into the Minister’s awaiting limo.

*

“Dammit,” Michael cursed once they were inside the vehicle. “Two months trying to get into the same room with Ian Pocatello, and this happens.”

He handed the memo to his superior. Before reading it, Alliras commented, “A bit medieval, sending a message on plastic. Quaint, as the Honerable Ian Pocatello put it, but still medieval.”

“It’s something that Calbert initiated; public thought-comm traffic is mimocorded by the government. CSIS has legislation allowing them to monitor any thought-comm or AV conversation, even encoded transmissions. Even the CCP can get access to the Corp’s messaging system, in a crunch. A hand-delivered message is about the most secure form of communication available to us, as ironic as that is.”

“Ironic,” the Minister repeated.

“If one of the CSIS agents, or even a worker at the communications network, is of the disgruntled variety, there’s always the chance of them selling any vital information over the border. We normally have a code we use over the thought-comm network, but I turned off my system for the charity function.”

Alliras read the plastic slip inside the envelope. He whistled. “What does this mean?”

“I’m going to find out soon enough,” Michael replied, already tapping in the number for a direct AV comm line to Calbert Loche, powered under SMD’s private and secured lines, to allow his superior to listen in. An AV comm, conducted through thought-link patches, could be heard by one person on either end of the transmission.

“What about your internal security?” Alliras prompted.

As the signal beeped that transmission was taking place, Michael answered, “We have our own code for department lines, just like your office, I assume. We use it for emergencies, so no one will have enough examples to decode.”

“You take your history lessons to heart, I see.”

“I learned from my superior, rather than from textbooks,” Michael complimented. Alliras nodded in concession.

To his consternation, Michael’s call was bounced to Raymond Magrath, Calbert’s capable assistant.

“What’s going on?” Michael demanded. “I got the message. Where’s Calbert? Get him on the line.”

Raymond looked sheepish. “Sorry, Director; Calbert has his hands full. I know he needs to speak to you, though. Urgently.” He struggled to think of what could be said over what passed for a “secure” line.

“There’s a…a kind of 152, but of indeterminate substance or identification.”

Michael chewed on his lip.

“And…?” he pressed after a moment.

“Also, a 489.”

“Oh. Damn.” He nodded to the assistant. “We’re already on our way. Fifteen minutes.”

“Thank you, Director.” The assistant severed the connection.

Michael hung up the comm line.

“So what’s a 152 and 489?” The Minister asked, raising one brow.

“A 152 is a ‘Find.’ A discovery of a mineral or ore lode.”

“That’s good, then.”

“Indeterminate. We get an average of a dozen 152s a week.

“—A 489,” Michael informed him solemnly, “we don’t get so often. It means there’s been an accident, and there are multiple deaths involved.”

The silence in the limo stretched out for a full minute, and then Alliras nodded.

“Then by all means, let’s not spare the horses.”

__________

USA, Inc. Exploration Site :

Mission
Orcus 1
:

Pluto :

On the bridge
DMR casement of the
Orcus 1
, and simulcast on their workstation monitors and palm puters, the NASA insignia appeared along with the emblems from the Canadian Space Exploration division, the European Space Agency, the Japan Conglomeration Space Enterprises, and the People’s Republic of China Space Program, all of whom had joined the Pluto mission under NASA authority.

Justine scrutinized every digiface character that appeared on the screen.