Part 14 (2/2)

So does that mean they're incredibly long lived even immortal? Do they shoot one of their 'slow packets' out into s.p.a.ce the way we would post a letter confident that it will be delivered and replied to quickly enough to make it worth the effort of licking the stamp? Or is it a monumental event, a moonshot?

Ghislain claimed they had to hire a faster boat from another bunch of aliens, ones who did know the secret of faster-than-light travel. Are the Eridani jealous of their neighbours? Can't they sc.r.a.pe up enough cash to buy their own stars.h.i.+ps? Or do they scoff at those hotrods, the way we might smirk as a teenager roars down our street in his first hoon-mobile? I can't imagine human beings carrying out a mission that spanned centuries politicians can barely see past the next election.

I found myself trying to imagine the great, cold minds who could operate at that speed, and had to snap myself out of the reverie. 'What is that thing you're building?'

'You've heard of elegance in software design,' said the Doctor. 'Programs which rely on cleverness to solve problems in the quickest, cleanest way possible.' He hefted the machine he had built. 'This represents the opposite of that approach.'

'Brute force,' I said.

'Just in case we need it.'

When we got to Harrington, we drove around for half an hour trying to find the State Fairgrounds. There were grounds, all right, but no Fair. We all looked at one another. 'I guess we better ask someone,' said Peri.

A gas station attendant looked at us as though we'd asked for directions to the Martian Emba.s.sy. 'The State Fair is only on in July,' he explained. 'You're kind of late. Or maybe kind of early.'

Peri said, 'Maybe she meant she was going to meet someone at the fairgrounds, not the Fair.'

'We drove all over,' said Bob. 'There was n.o.body there.

Have we ever been had. What a bunch of hosers.'

'Swan has discovered the tap on her phone' said the Doctor. 'We'll have to let Bob know there's not much point in monitoring her calls if she's going to use them for disinformation. Blast. That's quite a useful resource, gone!'

Peri and I exchanged glances. I wonder if she was feeling a little relief that we wouldn't be using the tap again, the same as I was. Computer crime is too new to give you the creeps the same way that eavesdropping on someone's phone does.

'So, after that little diversion, it's on to Ocean City,' said the Doctor.

'We're on our way,' I said.

'She knows we're going there,' said Peri. 'lf she found the tap on her phone, then she must know we heard her earlier calls.'

The Doctor didn't have a reply to that. 'Do you want to take that turn behind the wheel?' I asked Peri. We pulled over and they both got into the front. I stretched out in the back seat. I wished I could take my shoes off and press my feet against the window.

Ocean City is basically one long street, several miles running down the finger of a peninsula, with cross-streets travelling just two or three blocks from the oceanfront to the bay. In December it's almost but not quite a ghost town there are still cars, but far too few to justify eight lanes of road... closed miniature golf courses, boarded-up diners. The average age of the people in this town goes up twenty years in the off-season, and every one of those years seems to be added to the age of the town itself. The sky is grey, the houses are grey, the sea is a slab of slate.

Cobb's house was a faded clapboard relic of the '50s, off on the bay-side down near the Route 50 bridge standalone, but not much elbow room between it and the neighbours: land is scarce and pricey on a glorified sandbar. More and more of the sand is being eaten away on the ocean side: eventually the big hotels are going to end up on stilts. Back in the '30s a hurricane actually carved a channel through the peninsula, the sea charging in to reach the bay, turning the lost bit into an island that's gradually fleeing south over the years.

Swan knew she was risking a wasted trip. It was likely that Cobb's house would have been picked clean by now, emptied and swept out ready for resale. She parked in the driveway and used her home remote to roll up the garage door. There were no cars parked inside, and she could see through the windows of the house that at least some of the furniture had been taken.

Swan put on her gloves, took a crowbar from the garage, went in the back of the house and jemmied open the kitchen door. Inside, she flicked the light switch just once, to make sure the power was still on. She put the crowbar down on the counter, then slipped a tight sportsband onto her left wrist and slid a small flashlight under it. She kept the light pointed at the floor as she moved around the dead man's house.

She picked up the phone in the living room. No dial tone; Cobb's relatives had done that much, at least, unless the phone company had cut him off for non-payment. The shelves in the living room and study were still packed with Cobb's possessions. Swan wondered idly what percentage of the books mostly chunky hardbacks he had actually read. She hadn't even bothered to unpack most of the books she'd moved with in her house in McLean.

She had made a mental list of the most likely places to look for the device. If he wasn't worried about keeping it a secret, then it would probably be in his study there was no workshop in the garage or bas.e.m.e.nt. The filing cabinet was locked; she retrieved the crowbar and opened each of the drawers. Nothing but personal papers, the acc.u.mulated paperwork of life. If he was worried about keeping it a secret, then try under the bed, under a floorboard beneath a rug no chance there, everything was carpeted except the kitchen and bathroom. Less likely were the boxes in the closets. A problem was that she didn't know precisely what she was looking for, even how large it would be, although she was guessing it would be around the same size as she and Luis's original purchases. Smaller than a breadbox, she thought. Around the size of her fist.

Swan worked patiently down her list. She didn't put the boxes back in the closet, but she didn't throw them around, either. Only people frustrated Swan. Even a chunky computer system or a badly written program couldn't faze her: she dropped into what she thought of as her work mode, and systematically tackled whatever tangled mess she had been presented with. Chip Cobb's house was merely another problem that required a systematic approach.

All right. Either the device wasn't here, or Cobb had hidden it too well for her to find it in a casual search; they were both possibilities. Cobb was no longer around to ask, but that didn't mean he hadn't left the information where she could find it.

The study was a veranda what the Yanks call a porch. A brand new IBM PC adorned Cobb's tidy study desk, its Pastel Denim Binders standing to attention on a miniature bookshelf.

Swan glanced at the modem: there was a dial tone. The family hadn't thought to disconnect Cobb's second line.

She pushed the DOS disk into the A drive, and flipped the big red switch. She went to the kitchen to make herself some coffee while It booted up.

Cobb had written the pa.s.sword to his BBS account on the inside of the DOS manual. Swan systematically read through his email, including his sent-mail, which included messages to her. There were several messages which mentioned an item which had to be the third component. Swan sat forward, putting down the coffee cup.

There was mention of meetings and money. Cobb had been helping someone calling themselves The River find the missing item for a hefty fee. Had he delivered the item before he had died? Had he put it in safekeeping somewhere? There was no mention of an agreed drop, but the device might be in a safety deposit box.

Swan paged through a box of five and a quarter inch diskettes on Cobb's desk. Each was labelled with a range of dates. She slid one into the PC, and confirmed her guess: this was a record of Cobb's correspondence, downloaded from the Internet where it would be safe from hacking eyes. He had never been able to download the last week or so's worth of mail.

Swan smiled wryly to herself. Only recently had she learned what it was like to have someone else rummaging through your private email and files: a lot of people had tried, but only the Doctor and his friends had succeeded. It seemed as though there was no safe place for communications, not the network, certainly not the phone system. With no laws to stop hackers, you had to a.s.sume everything was an open book.

From now on, she would keep all her messages and files encrypted. One day those laws might come into existence, and she no more wanted the Feds reading her disks than the Doctor. But in any case, reading Cobb's email couldn't do him any harm now Still... the little hairs on the back of Swan's neck were bristling. She had the deep and instinctive feeling of being watched. She found a blank diskette, slapped it into the drive, and waited impatiently while the last of Cobb's mail came down the modem.

When she had it all, she made a backup, swapping diskettes back and forth in the single drive. Then she deleted all of the remaining email, including all of the copies of messages Cobb had sent. She could have gone on to disconnect the machine from the ARPANet, to make absolutely sure no-one else could get at the goodies; but that would have been enormously conspicuous, at least to the local users of the machine and its sysop. No, she had what she wanted, and now she could read it at her leisure.

When we next called Bob, he had the exciting and unexpected news that Swan had discovered the tap on her phone (she had called herself and left a filthy message on his answering machine). 'Where have you been?' he demanded. 'I've been dying for you guys to call! G.o.d, we should have got a phone for that car!'

'We couldn't find a public telephone before now,' said the Doctor. 'We've been driving all over the Delaware countryside trying to find one.'

'Well why didn't you just knock on some farmer's door?'

'We were just about ready to try that,' admitted the Doctor. 'Then we came across this life-saving petrol station.

But when we did call, your number was engaged!'

'Well, I'd given up and logged back in, hadn't I! It's not like I have more than one phone line to choose from.'

Peri had arrived bearing melts. I knew what a mess the sandwiches made and didn't want to start mine until we were back on the road, but she was already tucking into hers, getting onions and grease all over her face and hands. The Doctor put his into the pocket of his jacket and smacked the receiver against his forehead. 'How frustrating it is to have the laws of physics dictate how you can move and communicate!'

he sighed.

Two.

Piece by piece, diskette by diskette, Swan put together the story of the supercomputer and its components.

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