Part 15 (1/2)
”They won't be able to ID this s.h.i.+p, at least not unless the scout s.h.i.+p is back in-system. It might have scanners advanced enough to get a good look. But those s.h.i.+ps are expensive, there's only a few of them, and one of them already spent its time here. They'd only send it back when Joe gives his report, and it probably isn't here yet.”
”Where should we go?” Telisa asked. She realized that she was still very new at this smuggler stuff, and now she was in way over her head.
”Let's just stay in s.p.a.ce for a while,” Magnus suggested. ”I want to know what we've got in s.h.i.+ny. I also need to scan the s.h.i.+p carefully, in case the UNSF managed to mark us somehow. Why don't you talk to s.h.i.+ny, see if he's a willing pa.s.senger, for starters.”
Telisa loved that idea. She could forget about the UNSF for a while and study the alien and the artifacts.
”That sounds great! I need to scan the artifacts, and I'll try to talk with s.h.i.+ny some more while I'm at it.”
”I'll concentrate on getting us out of here. Remember what I said, be ready to run for a shock pod.”
”What'll s.h.i.+ny do? We don't have any pods for aliens.”
Magnus grimaced. ”We'll try our best. Maybe we won't have to go for the pods.”
”Okay, maybe I could show him one.”
”I wouldn't. If he went in there, he'd probably panic.”
”A human would, if they didn't know what was going on. But I think he's pretty smart. He knows we don't mean him any harm.”
”Your call. Just make sure you get in a pod if I say so.”
”Okay.” Telisa turned and headed for a cargo bay where she could catalog her h.o.a.rd of artifacts. She used her link to ask the computer where the scanning equipment rested and got an odd notification.
”There's something wrong with my link. It's not working right,” Telisa said, turning back towards Magnus. ”And the s.h.i.+p's computer is complaining about it too. It says I'm hogging storage.”
That got Magnus's attention.
”Hogging storage? Have you been recording a lot?”
”Hardly anything,” she said.
Magnus remained quiet for a moment. Then he cursed.
”d.a.m.n!”
”What's wrong?”
”Something's up with your link,” Magnus said, his eyes still closed. ”It's been compromised somehow.”
”What?”
”Give me a minute. I have to fire off some comp tasks and then I can talk more.”
Telisa waited. Now she felt more tense. Something wrong with her link? Was it the complex? Trilisk tampering? Or had s.h.i.+ny somehow damaged it?
At last Magnus opened his eyes. He looked at Telisa for a moment in a way that scared her.
”What? What's going on?”
”I've discovered a UNSF snoop program running on your link.”
”What! You mean they've tapped me? Those fua””
”It must have run out of s.p.a.ce in your local cache. We spent all that time in the complex, and you didn't link to anything. Usually the spy program gathers information and downloads it at public links. But we've been isolated from public links for a long time now.”
”So everything we know, who we are, and what we've found...”
”Including s.h.i.+ny, will be downloaded next time you connect to a public link,” Magnus finished for her. ”We have to clear this out before we enter any port. It may even be sophisticated enough to detect public ports in range and download all by itself.”
Telisa bit back a scream of rage. The UNSF... the ones who had taken her father from her, the ones who tried to control everyone's lives, had been recording her life from a secret program placed into the link hardware at the base of her skull.
”Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds,” Telisa lamented. ”They recorded everything. Probably down to every request for the local time. Now wait a minute, that means they know about my employment with you, Thomas, and Jack! If they know it all, why'd they let us leave?”
Magnus shook his head. ”No, you had a sleeper. It wasn't active when we hired you, believe me, we checked.”
”You checked? You scanned my link? How could you?”
”We had to. It wouldn't be safe not to. Look, we didn't record anything of yours. We just checked to make sure you were clean. That's all. I promise.”
Telisa took a deep breath. What Magnus said made sense. They would have to check things like that to keep from getting caught in a society in which people could be unknowing spies for their government.
”That isn't the only unusual thing going on with the links,” Magnus said. ”Since s.h.i.+ny came on board, he's been trying to emulate our link's handshake codes to connect to the s.h.i.+p's computer.”
”Really? He's trying to break in?”
Magnus shrugged. ”From his point of view, it's probably not so much trying to break in as just trying to communicate. Obviously he's detected the data we transfer on the link frequency, and he's trying to speak the same language. But our s.h.i.+p's computer is rejecting him.”
”You should give him an account. We need to learn to talk with him somehow.”
”Okay. But I want to restrict his access. He seems to be on our side, but he is an alien, after all. Until we understand him better, I'll keep an eye on it.”
”And my problem?”
”We can work on that once we're out of the system,” Magnus said. ”Link up with me and we'll poke around through Thomas's programs and see if we can find something to clean up your link.”
Once on the vessel, Kirizzo turned his resources towards learning to communicate with his hosts.
Kirizzo worked for several subcycles on the problem. He had been recording and cataloging their movements for some time now but had not had the chance to a.n.a.lyze the data in depth. He began this a.n.a.lysis once it became obvious that he would have a lot of time available.
He realized that the movements the creatures made were too simple. They could not encode enough information for a meaningful dialog. He pondered the meaning of this new discovery.
Either the aliens were much more modularized than his race and could function with very little interaction, or else they were using other means to augment the transfer of information.