This Alien Shore (23 page)

If Masada had been
nantana,
Hsing would have taken the word as mockery. But no iru could have gained such insight into his thought processes from one look alone to know what power that one word would have.

He moved closer and put his hand out to the screen, as if he would touch it. It was hard to look at such a thing in 2D like this, and not be able to rotate it at will in his mind's eye. It was turning slowly on the screen, giving him a gradual view of the whole, but that wasn't the same thing as being able to control it. “What's that thing?” he said, pointing to a slender yellow line running down the center of the helix. “That doesn't belong there.”

“If it really were alive, no.” Masada turned back to the screen, and he must have fed the controlling program some command through his headset, for the double helix and its odd accessory suddenly increased in size and definition until he could make out the fine yellow struts connecting the central tube to the helix. “That's memory storage. Normally it would be integrated with all the other elements, not isolated like that. But the programmer put it there, separate from the rest, so that it wouldn't disturb the symmetry of the overall design. Which tells us just how very deliberate his choice of image was.”

“You seem very sure of his motives.”

He tapped a finger on the screen, touching segments of the helix one by one: blue, red, green, white. “Four colors, Master Hsing. Each one representing a different kind of processing sequence. Four colors in varying combination—just like the nucleic acids in a DNA string. Add one more color and the metaphor is no longer perfect.” He shook his head in amazement. “He designed his whole program to mimic DNA. A pattern one would only discover by decompiling and then charting the entire thing. One can barely comprehend the effort that would take. The frustration that would be involved, as he discarded segments of code which would suit his purpose perfectly ... except when viewed thus.”

“Why?” he asked. “I mean, what's the point?”

“Good question. It certainly isn't a desire to show off, for the odds of anyone getting this far with it are astronomically small. I had to dismantle over a hundred traps to get the virus decompiled in the first place, and those were very effective traps, targeted at someone of my skill level or better. I've ruined over two dozen copies of the virus just getting this far. So whoever did this never expected any kind of recognition for his efforts, unless it was from a very select and secretive circle of colleagues.”

“Hackers?”

Masada turned to him. Just that: no words, no clear expression, just a look that Hsing could not read, a sentence that was never voiced, and the clear impression—gleaned from nowhere—that the professor's estimate of Hsing's intelligence was not all that high right now.

“They fit the bill for secrecy,” Hsing offered. “And ego.”

“Not hackers.”

“You're sure?”

Masada said nothing. After two months of sharing a ship with him, Hsing knew that he hated repetition of the obvious. What seemed obvious to
him,
anyway. The fact that sometimes redundancy might serve an emotional purpose—like reassuring someone that he did indeed have some basis for his judgments—was lost on him. Or perhaps he was aware of it, but simply didn't care.

“How?” Hsing demanded. “How can you know that?”

A faint expression that might almost have been a smile flickered across Masada's face. “This isn't a hacker's pattern, Master Hsing. It isn't how they think, how they act, how they program. Hackers are impatient creatures, hungry to test their skill against the world. They would never design a virus like this, that could disrupt all outworld commerce, and then hold it back for years while they worked to make it just a little prettier, on a level that no one would ever see. They would want to see it do its stuff.”

“You think it took that long to finish?”

“E-months at least. Years, if the designer had other business to attend to.” He turned back to the screen, and Hsing saw one section of virus give way to another, then to a third. “The programming charts of hacker viruses are complex, artistic in their own right, but they tend to be more chaotic in form, slapped together in bits and pieces as the muse of inspiration strikes. This is the product of a much more ordered mind. In fact I would say, this is the product of a mind that prides itself on order.” He stared at the sequence of flashing images for a moment in silence, then added, “I'd be willing to bet our designer is the product of conventional education, well-schooled rather than self-taught. He's a perfectionist at heart, and that probably shows up in his day-today life as well as his programming. He doesn't require praise from others, but takes pleasure in the process of his work. And whatever he planned to do with this ... I'd bet it was neither an impulsive move, nor a response to any outside event. He began work on it long ago and kept working on it until every byte was perfect. Then he set it loose. He's probably still watching it, which means that we may have a way to find him; I'm searching through his code now for any kind of homing sequence, or a pattern that might reasonably evolve into one. The fact that we're dealing with infinite variations makes it hard to find, of course; it may not even exist at this point. But I assure you, the man who created this masterpiece will want to see what it becomes.”

“He could just collect spores from the outernet,” Hsing reminded him. “Eventually he'd get what he wanted, and there'd be no risk that way.”

“For another programmer that might be enough,” Masada agreed. “Not for this man. His work is too ordered, too controlled ; that kind of personality wouldn't put itself at the mercy of chance. He'd want to watch every variation as it evolved, and in the proper sequence, so that if corrections were necessary, he could make them in a timely manner. And he's made arrangements to do so. Of that I'm certain.”

Hsing stared at Masada for a moment—the professor was focused on the virus once more, and seemed unaware of his scrutiny—and at last said, softly, “You seem to have great insight into how this man thinks.”

Did Masada hear the unvoiced challenge in his words? Iru weren't known for their insight into other peoples' motives. In fact, they were notorious for their lack of such insight. It had been one of the things the Guild had argued about, when Masada's name was first brought up as that of a possible consultant. An iru might prove helpful in analyzing cold, dead code, but could he possibly give them insight into who and what had created it? In the end they had decided to hire him anyway, but they hardly expected him to turn in a personality profile on the virus' designer.

“It's all in the code,” Masada said quietly. And it was to him. Cold code, clean and impersonal: of course, it contained the essence of the personality of the man who designed it. Of course, anyone who knew what he was doing could find those clues, and interpret them. It was all simple math to him, motivations dissected with the cool precision of a laser scalpel.
It's all in the code.
Yes, but who else would ever see it there?

It struck Hsing suddenly that Masada didn't even understand the nature of his own genius. To him the patterns of thought and motive that he sensed in the virus were self-explanatory, and those who could not see them were simply not looking hard enough. Yet he would readily admit to his own inability to analyze more human contact, even on the most basic level. That was part and parcel of being
iru.

What a strange combination of skills and flaws. What an utterly alien profile. Praise the founders of Guera for having taught them all to nurture such specialized talent, rather than seeking to “cure” it. It was little wonder that most innovations in technology now came from the Gueran colonies, and that Earth, who set such a strict standard of psychological “normalcy,” now produced little that was truly exciting. Thank God their own ancestors had left that doomed planet before they, too, had lost the genes of wild genius. Thank God they had seen the creative holocaust coming, and escaped it.

“True evolution is random,” Masada told him. “This isn't. Someone had to decide when and how the virus would mutate, and if I can isolate the code that controls that, I should be able to gain more insight into how the designer thought. Which in turn should give me more control over his creation. As well as answers to some very important questions.”

“Such as?”

For a moment Masada didn't answer. For a moment, it seemed, he was deciding whether or not he should answer. “It uses a segment of outpilot's code to gain entry,” he said at last. “Right now it's using code it stole during its former invasions; that's how the thing works. I want to know what was there originally, the first time it tried to gain access to an outpilot's brain. That will tell us a lot, Master Hsing ... including whether or not the designer had access to Guild files.”

A cold shiver ran down his spine. “You think one of our own was involved in this?”

“I think nothing at this time,” he said quietly. “But I must consider all possibilities ... including the least pleasant ones. If I can regress the virus, I may be able to tell more.”

“I thought you already did that.”

“I
decompiled
it. Broke it down. Regression is a different process, an extrapolation of source code probability.” He suddenly seemed to guess that he was moving into territory where mere untrained mortals could not follow, and started again. “I'm going to try to determine what earlier versions of this thing might have looked like. Depending upon what happens to the invasion sequence then, that may tell us something.”

“Evolution in reverse?”

“Precisely.”

“But if the thing really is that complex ...” He fumbled for the proper words. “That's rather like trying to guess what a child's great-grandparent looks like, given only one glimpse of the child. Isn't it? Wouldn't there theoretically be thousands of possible ancestors for each version of the program?”

“Millions, at this point. And more as each new generation is spawned.” His eyes fixed on the screen before him, he seemed wholly undisturbed by that prospect. “I'm hoping to find some underlying patterns which will enable us to prune the family tree. Reduce it to a workable number. That done, the most likely suspects for source code will be allowed to reproduce and evolve on their own, to see if the pattern of their growth is true to the original. Most of the false leads will reveal themselves within a few dozen generations. The remainder may enable us to draw some observations about the origin of our virus.”

Hsing stared at him in amazement. “Do you have any idea how much raw data you're talking about processing?”

“Of course I do, Guildmaster Hsing.” He shrugged. “I have four months here, after all. The Guild won't transmit current copies of the virus to us while we're in transit for fear of data interception, thus I have only what you brought me originally to work with.” He looked up at Hsing. “Can you think of a more productive way for me to spend my time?”

“No. Of course not.” He watched as the professor turned his attention to the creature on his screen once more. The image grew larger, sharpened, and coiled upward a few turns, responding to unspoken commands. Within a few moments it was clear that Masada's attention was elsewhere; Hsing wondered if the professor even remembered that he was in the room.

“Your processing requirements are crowding out the ship's own programs.” He said it bluntly, plainly, though all his
nantana
instincts urged him to do otherwise. But you didn't beat around the bush with an iru. They didn't like it, and besides, it wouldn't get you anywhere.

A second passed, then Masada turned to him again. “Is anything disabled?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Then there is no cause for concern.” He turned back to his work.

Hsing took a step forward, edging into the man's personal space just enough to break his concentration. “Dr. Masada, the captain asked me to talk to you about this.”

The dark eyes turned on him. Annoyance flickered in their depths. “Speak, then.”

“You're monopolizing his processors. Ship's systems are slowing down.”

“Guildmaster Hsing.” The man's tone was slow now, infinitely patient, as though he were talking to a child. Or an idiot. If the man were
nantana,
Hsing would have taken great offense at his tone; as it was, he gritted his teeth and didn't protest. “I've explained my work to you. You understand its importance. Now, I've promised the captain and his crew that my calculations won't interfere with the functioning of this ship. And they haven't, have they? I'm sorry if one program or another is running a nanosecond slower, but unfortunately this ship is ill equipped for my kind of research. I have to use whatever space I can find, wherever I can squeeze it out of something.” His eyes flickered back to the screen, but Hsing's closeness made it impossible for him to tune the Guildmaster out. “The equipment we brought with us is sufficient for me to manipulate the virus itself, but I need much more than that. The things I'm processing on the ship's system are no security risk.”

“That isn't the issue.”

The dark eyes narrowed. He had rarely seen Masada angry; it was strangely refreshing to see a human emotion on that impassive face, one that he recognized.

“Master Hsing, you hired me onto this job because the Guild was threatened. A virus is loose in the outworlds which can take down your outpilots ... and because of that, it threatens all of human civilization. Or at least, so you told me. It strikes me that a threat like that is a
little
more important than whether some rich tourist from Paradise can access the latest Ima Starshine viddie to go to sleep by. Now, if you feel I'm wrong in that assessment, you just tell me now and I'll withdraw all my data from the ship's innernet, and let the captain run his systems in peace. Otherwise, I would very much appreciate it if you would let me get back to my work.”