This Alien Shore (59 page)

I
T WAS a somber Kio Masada who called for a meeting with Gaza and the Prima. Not that anyone else would notice that quality in him. The
iru
was inward-focused, and rarely offered other kaja the cues they needed to interpret its emotions. Yesterday he had been quiet and reserved and dressed in black. Today he was quiet and reserved and dressed in black. Yesterday he had been chasing a data phantom across a vast and fascinating universe. Today the crushing weight of that universe was on his shoulders, and he knew that the words he chose might condemn a guilty world to hell, or damn an innocent one. Who could tell the difference?

The Prima suggested a small meeting room on an inner ring of the station. That was fine with him. There was no place that was truly comfortable for him, outside of the workroom where he now spent so much of his time. Yet even these rooms were familiar compared to where he might have to go soon. At least this station was peopled mostly by Guerans, and most of them Guild; he was of their race and their culture, and theoretically knew how to deal with him. Other stations would be very different. Yet as much as he dreaded leaving Tiananmen, he knew it might soon be necessary. There were some meetings that simply could not be managed, except in the flesh.

The Prima was dressed formally, which told him that she had official business lined up right after this meeting. He wondered if she'd cancel her next event, after what he had to tell her. Devlin Gaza was more casually attired. It struck Masada suddenly that he hadn't seen the programmer as much in the past few days as he was accustomed to. Was that a sign of his trust in the professor, that he could manage his job now without being supervised? Ironically it had come at the time when Masada most would have liked another human being to share in his discoveries, someone to bounce ideas off as he tried to weave facts together into some meaningful whole. Human conspiracy wasn't his strong point.

They knew that, of course. It was possibly even why they had made an effort recently to see that he was left alone. Objectivity.

Gaza called up the room's security system and gave it instructions verbally, so that they might all know what he was doing. He engaged the soundproofing, ordered a data filter, and called up recording cams they could turn on at will. He glanced at the Prima, who shook her head ever so slightly; no. The cams remained off, tiny glass eyes staring down at the table, cold and blind.

“Well, Dr. Masada.” The Prima folded her gloved hands on the table; the sigil of the Guild, embroidered on each cuff, was turned back neatly at each wrist. “I take it you have something to report?”

He drew in a deep breath and for a minute he didn't look at them, but turned inward, composing himself. The intensity of their gaze was hard to meet, so he didn't even try. He just said quietly, “I may have discovered Lucifer's source.”

He could hear her indrawn breath, and he saw out of the comer of his eye that Gaza stiffened.

“May
have,” he stressed.

“Of course,” she said softly, and Gaza urged, “Please, tell us.”

“As the Director knows,” he still didn't look directly at him, “it's been my theory since the beginning that whoever created this virus would want to watch it, and possibly fine-tune it as it evolved. That implied there would be some kind of collection system, or perhaps a homing pattern within the virus itself. When I arrived in the outworlds to discover that a large percentage of Lucifer's spores were unaccounted for, this seemed to confirm that theory. Either spores had been removed from the outernet, or they were being collected at one point, where they could be studied.”

“The Professor's figures on this were most impressive,” Gaza said quietly. There was an odd tension in his voice. Jealousy, perhaps? This should have been his speech to give, not an outsider's.

Masada forced himself to look up at them again, knowing his direct gaze would give his words more power. “I found that collection point.”

“Where?” the Prima demanded.

“Earth Node. The waystation.” As always his words were voiced without emotion, but clearly none was needed. The name itself, in this context, had all the power of a scream. He could see them both stiffen in response, and cursed his own lack of skill at reading human expression. Were they more surprised, horrified... or pleased? Many Guerans considered Earth to be an enemy, and would be all too happy to have evidence of Terra's guilt in something like this. It was his job to be objective, but it wasn't theirs. “They were being gathered at a mail drop, for delivery to the motherworld. Over a million of them.” He paused. “Deactivated.”

“Earth!” Gaza muttered. “We should have known—”

The Prima held up a gloved hand, silencing him.
“Deactivated,
you say?”

“Yes.”

“Then we know how to do this now. How to shut the virus down. Yes?”

“Not yet, Prima. But we will. I managed to visit the mail drop several times before the dump, and collected several copies of what should have been the most dangerous spores. If we compare those to our ‘hot' copies of the same generation, we should be able to figure out what was done to turn it off.”

“That's our priority,” she commanded him. “The hunt for its maker can wait. Lucifer is still killing.”

“With all due respect,” Gaza said quietly, “if we let the trail get too cold, we may lose sight of it entirely—”

“The two goals are not exclusive,” Masada told them. Why couldn't people stay with the natural flow of a conversation, and not stray? There was information to impart, and he knew how to do it; he wished they would trust him to lead this, and not interrupt. “Director Gaza has copies of nearly every variation on file. The comparison work shouldn't require my attention; a good program will do the first steps automatically. In the meantime, I've been working on identifying the data trail from both ends.” He paused. “I don't yet know where Lucifer came from, but I know exactly where it was going.”

The Prima said, “You know where the deactiviated spores were being sent.”

It seemed to him a question that didn't need to be asked, but in deference to her rank he answered it anyway. “Yes.”
And therein lies the weight of the universe which chokes my very breath....

“To Earth?” Gaza demanded.

He nodded. “To Earth.” And then came the words which would echo in history for eons to come. They were the most powerful words he had ever uttered, and he could taste their power as they left his lips. “ECS.”

The Prima exhaled a sharp breath. “Earth Central Security?”

“Are you sure?” Gaza demanded. “Absolutely sure?”

Masada nodded.

The Prima sat back heavily in her chair. Gaza muttered something under his breath that might have been a profanity.

This was no corporate effort, one move in a vast war between Terran industries. It was no experimental gambit either, launched by an independent researcher who hoped to make his name at the expense of Gueran secrets. This virus was from Earth, from the center of Earth authority itself, launched by those very people who were responsible for seeing that the motherworld acted like a responsible member of the galactic community.

Earth had betrayed Guera.
Earth.

She had betrayed her Guild treaty.

She had put all of humanity at risk. All of her children.

“You are
sure,”
the Prima pressed. Her tone was icy. “There can be no doubt, if we take action on this.”

Masada pulled a chip out of his headset and slid it across the table to Gaza. “Look for yourselves. The data is all here. Transfer codes for the mail drop, standard ECS encryption. I even watched the transfer take place, just to make sure as they were sent out according to those codes, to confirm where they were going. There's no doubt, none at all. One million plus spores of Lucifer, shipped via official channels to ECS, on Earth. Now, as for who is in charge of it once it gets there... I regret there's no way to know that.”

Her brow furrowed. “You can't...” She glanced toward Gaza as she sought the proper word. “Can't follow the trail back? See where it goes?”

Gaza shook his head. “Two-month signal delay. No way to work in real-time. Earth is just too far away.” He tapped the chip sharply; his mouth was a hard, thin line. “This is enough though. This ... this will be enough.” Masada could well imagine what he was feeling. Here was the enemy who had infected his most advanced programs, spied on his greatest secrets, and killed the outpilots he was sworn to protect. Now, for the first time, he had a name for it, and even Masada could hear the hate in his voice. And of course there would be vengeance. The most terrible vengeance imaginable. An echo of the horror Earth had once let loose on all of them, from which Variant society had never fully recovered.

Interstellar isolation. And this time there would be no Gueran search mission to come rescue them.

Masada couldn't think about that now. There were still too many other things to do. And besides, if he ever really connected emotionally with what this evidence would lead to... he couldn't. He just couldn't.

So instead he folded his hands before him and moved to the next subject at hand. “That's only one end of the trail, of course.”

Gaza said between gritted teeth, “Lucifer's going home to Earth. That implies it came from Earth in the first place. Yes?”

“Maybe.” He was uncomfortable with such speculation, and knew that insightful kaja such as these two could read it clearly in his face. “There's no proof of that yet. And even if it's true, there may be others involved. We found this mail drop because of a signal Guildmaster Varsav intercepted in his node. It was supposedly sent from one of the Earth extremist stations, I believe called the New Terran Front.”

“Bastards!” Gaza muttered, but the Prima put a warning hand on his arm.

“Supposedly?”
she asked.

“The signal did come from that station. Which hints that the New Terran Front is in league with Earth, part of a larger conspiracy. The only trouble is... Guildmaster Varsav believes the signal didn't originate with them.”

Gaza was stunned for a moment. It seemed to take him some effort to speak. “I assume you checked the point of origin. The audit codes. Yes? Did it come from the station or didn't it?”

“It came from the station. But Varsav insists it wasn't originally transmitted from there. He seems to know these people well enough to judge such a thing.”

“Based on what kind of proof?” Gaza demanded.

The Prima overrode him with a short gesture. “So what are you saying? Someone set that station up? Wanted them to get caught?”

“That is Varsav's suggestion.”

Gaza asked sharply, “And you? What do you believe?”

“I'm a creature of data, Director. You knew that when you hired me. I need more data now before I can evaluate this. We know where the trail is meant to end, and a probable point of origination for Lucifer, but that isn't enough. That still leaves someone inside the Guild who is involved in this, remember?”

“You're still convinced of that?” the Prima pressed.

“There's no question in my mind. The virus simply couldn't have been designed without a core of Guild code. Maybe the designer had hoped to disguise it well enough that no one would figure it out... but he failed at that. Punishing Earth without finding that person still leaves the Guild vulnerable. Especially if Lucifer's designer isn't on Earth when punishment is meted out.”

“He'd wind up in outspace, trapped here with us. Frustrated, furious, cut off from his homeworld. He'd have a whole planet to avenge, and a whole lifetime to do it in.”

“Precisely. And if there is still someone in the Guild willing to feed him code—for whatever reason—he could design something far worse than Lucifer. Something not programmed to sneak around and spy on us, but simply to destroy.”

“All right.” She nodded. “You've done well, Dr. Masada. I thank you. The Guild thanks you. What more do you need from us now?”

He shook his head. “Nothing more than you've already given me. I may travel. There are others who've been tracing Lucifer, it seems. They may have access to data I don't. Different types of data.”

“Guild?” Gaza demanded.

Masada met his eyes directly. It was a thing he did rarely, and he knew for that reason it had power. “No. Not Guild.”

The Prima hissed softly. “Dr. Masada . . .”

“I know the security risk.” He met her eyes now. “You know I'll be careful.”

“Who is it?” Gaza asked.

He shook his head. “No. No names yet. I don't want you watching them. I don't want them scared away.”

Despite herself, the Prima smiled. “You make this sound like some kind of wild animal. Bolting for cover at the first sign of danger.”

Masada's normally impassive face brightened. “Yes. That's it. Just so.” He nodded graciously to her. “I thank you for the metaphor, Prima Cairo. I'll remember it when I write my next book. Most appropriate.”

“I hope you find your trail soon,” Gaza said darkly. “Before the one you search for realizes you're looking for him, and destroys the evidence you need.”

The half-smile faded from Masada's face as quickly as it had come. “Yes, of course. You're quite right, Director. It's a race now, isn't it?” And he nodded to Gaza, but his expression was grim, and it had a different meaning. “I will try to be ... efficient.”