A Deepness in the Sky (55 page)

Nau's gaze took in each of the petitioners: Xin, Liao, Fong. Trinli sat a little apart, as if to show that he had tried to dissuade the others. Ezr Vinh was off-Watch, else he would surely be here. They were all troublemakers by Ritser Brughel's measure. Every Watch, their tiny pod here at L1 drifted further and further from the norms of an Emergent community. Part of it was their desperate circumstances, part of it was Qeng Ho assimilation. Even in defeat, the Peddler attitudes were corrosive. Yes, by civilized standards, these people were troublemakers—but they were also the people who, along with Qiwi, made the mission possible.

For a moment no one spoke. Tears leaked silently from Rita Liao's eyes. Hammerfest's microscopic gravity wasn't enough to tug them down her cheeks. Jau Xin's head bowed in submission. "I understand, Podmaster. We withdraw the petition."

Nau gave a gracious nod. There would be no punishment, and an important point had been made.

Then Qiwi patted his hand. She was grinning! "So why not make this a test for what we will do later? True, we can't reveal ourselves, but look at what Jau has done. For the first time, we're really using the Spiders' own intelligence system. Their automation may be twenty years short of an Information Age, but they are pushing computers even harder than in Earth's Dawn Age. Eventually, Anne's translators will be inserting information back into their systems, why not start now? Each year we should do a little more meddling and a little more experimentation."

Hope shone in Xin's eyes, but his words were still in retreat. "But are they that far along? These creatures just launched their first satellite last year. They don't have pervasive localizer nets—or any localizer nets at all. Except for that pitiful link from Princeton to Lands Command, they don't even have a computer net. How can we get information back into their system?"

Yes, how?

But Qiwi was still smiling. It made her look so young, almost like the first years that he'd had her. "You said that the Accord has intercepted Kindred comm related to the kidnapping?"

"Sure. That's howwe know what's going on. But Accord Intelligence can't break the Kindred crypto."

"Are they trying to break the intercepts?"

"Yes. They have several of their largest computers—big as houses—flailing away at both ends of the Princeton/Lands Command microwave link. It would take them millions of years to come on the right decryption key...Oh." Xin's eyes got even wider. "Can we do that without them twigging?"

Nau got the point at almost the same moment. He asked the air: "Background: How are they generating test keys?"

After a second, a voice replied, "A pseudo-random walk, modified by what their mathematicians know about the Kindred's algorithms."

Qiwi was reading something in her huds. "Apparently the Accord is experimenting with distributed computation across the link. That's frivolous, since there are less than ten computers on their entire net. But we have a dozen snoopersats that pass across the lines of sight of their microwavelink. It would be easy to mung up what's going between their relays—that's how we were going to do our first inserts, anyway. In this case, we'll just make small changes when they are sending trial keys. It might be as few as a hundred bits, even counting the framing."

Reynolt: "Okay. Even if they investigate later, it would be a plausible glitch. Do it for more than one key, and I say it's too dangerous."

"One key would be enough, if it's for the right session."

Qiwi looked at Nau. "Tomas, it could work. It's low-risk, and we should be experimenting with active measures anyway. You know the Spiders are more and more interested in space activities. We may be forced to meddle a lot, fairly soon." She patted his shoulder, cajoling more publicly than ever before. No matter how cheerful she seemed, Qiwi had her own emotional stake in this.

But she's right. This could be the ideal first sending for Anne's zip-heads. Time to be grandly generous. Nau smiled back. "Very well, ladies and gentlemen. You have convinced me. Anne, arrange to reveal one key. I think Manager Xin can show you the critical session. Give this operation first transient priority for the next forty Ksec—and retroactively for the last forty." So Xin and Liao and the others were officially off the hook.

They didn't cheer, but Nau sensed enthusiasm and abject gratitude as the petitioners stood and floated out of the room.

Qiwi started to follow them, then turned quickly back and kissed Nau on the forehead. "Thanks, Tomas." And then she was gone with the others.

He turned to the only remaining visitor, Kal Omo. "Keep an eye on them, Sergeant. I'm afraid things will be more complicated from now on."

During the Great War, there had been times when Hrunkner Unnerby had gone without sleep for days at a time, under fire all the while. This single night was worse. God only knew how bad it was for the General and Sherkaner. Once the phone lines were in place, Unnerby spent most of his time in the joint command post, just down the hall from the Accord-secure room. He worked with the local cops and Underville's comm team, trying to track the rumors around town. The General had been in and out, the picture of composed intensity. But Unnerby could tell that his old boss was over the edge. She was managing too much, involving herself at low levels and high. Hell, she'd been gone now for three hours, off with one of the field teams.

Once, he went out to check on Underhill. Sherk was holed up in the signals lab, right below the top of the hill. Guilt lay like a blight on him, dimming the happy spirit of genius he used to bring to every problem. But the cobber was trying, substituting obsession for buoyant enthusiasm. He was pounding away with his computers, coopting everything he could. Whatever he was doing, it looked like nonsense to Unnerby.

"It's math, not engineering, Hrunk."

"Yeah, number theory." This from the scruffy-looking postdoc whose lab this was. "We're listening for..." He leaned forward, apparently lost in the mysteries of his own programming. "We're trying to break the crypto intercepts."

Apparently he was talking about the signal fragments that had been detected coming out of the Princeton area just after the abduction. Unnerby said, "But we don't even know if that's from the kidnappers."And if I werethe Kindred, I'd be using one-time code words, not some keyed encryption.

Jaybert what's-his-name just shrugged and continued with his work. Sherkaner didn't say anything either, but his aspect was desolate. This was the best he could do.

So Unnerby had fled back to the joint command post, where there was at least the illusion of progress.

Smith was back about an hour after sunrise. She looked through the negative reports quickly, a nervous edge to her movements. "I left Belga downtown with the local cops. Damnation, her comm isn't much better than the locals'."

Unnerby rubbed his eyes, trying vainly to put a polish there that only a good sleep could accomplish. "I fear Colonel Underville doesn't really like all this fancy equipment." In any other generation, Belga would have been fine. In this one—well, Belga Underville was not the only person having trouble with the grand new era.

Victory Smith slid down next to her old sergeant. "But she has kept the press off our backs. What word from Rachner?"

"He's down in the Accord-secure center." In fact, the young major did not confide in Unnerby.

"He's so sure this is a pure Kindred operation. I don't know. They are in on it...but, you know the museum clerk is a trad? And the cobber working the museum's loading dock has disappeared. Belga's discovered he's a traditionalist, too. I think the local trads are in this up to their shoulders." Her voice was mild, almost contemplative. Later, much too much later, Hrunkner would remember back: The General's voice was mild, but she sat with every limb tensed.

Unfortunately, Hrunkner Unnerby was lost in his own world. All night long he had watched the reports, and stared out into the windy dark. All night long he had prayed to the coldest depths of the earth, prayed for Little Victory, Gokna, Brent, and Jirlib. He spoke sadly, almost to himself. "I watched them grow into real people, cobblies that anyone could love. They do have souls."

"What do you mean?" The sharpness in Victory's voice didn't penetrate his fatigue. He had years afterward to think back on this conversation, this single moment, to imagine the ways he might have avoided disaster. But the present did not feel the desperate gaze of the future, and he blundered on: "It's not their fault that they were brought into the world out-of-phase."

"It's not their fault my slippery modern ideals have killed them?" Smith's voice was a cutting hiss, something that even sorrow and fatigue could not block from Unnerby's attention. He saw that his General was trembling.

"No, I—" But it was finally, irrevocably too late.

Smith was on her feet. She flicked a single long arm across his head, whiplike."Get out!"

Unnerby staggered back. His right side vision was a coruscating ray of plaid agony. In all other directions, he saw officers and noncoms caught with aspects of shocked surprise.

Smith advanced on him. "Trad! Traitor!" Her hands jabbed with each word, killing blows just barely restrained. "For years you've pretended to be a friend, but always sneering and hating us. Enough!" She stopped her relentless approach, and brought her arms back to her sides. And Hrunkner knew she had capped her rage, and what she said now was cold and calm and considered...and it hurt even more than the wound across his eyes. "Take your moral baggage and go. Now."

Her aspect was something he had seen once or twice before, during the Great War, when their backs were against the wall and still she had not yielded. There would be no argument, no relenting. Unnerby lowered his head, choked on words he was desperate to say.I'm sorry. I meant noharm. I love your children. But it was too late for words to change anything. Hrunkner turned, walked quickly past the shocked and silent staff and out the door.

When Rachner Thract heard that Smith was back in the building, he hightailed it down to the joint command post. That's where he should have been during the night,except I'll be damned if I let my crypto get exposedto the domestic branch and the local police. The separate operation had worked, thank goodness. He had hard information for the chief.

He ran into Hrunkner Unnerby going the other way. The old sergeant had lost his usual martinet bearing. He walked unsteadily down the hallway, and there was a long, milky welt across the right side of his head.

He waved at the sergeant. "You okay?" But Unnerby walked on past him, ignoring Rachner as a beheaded osprech might ignore a farmer. He almost turned to follow the cobber, then remembered his own urgency and continued into the joint command post.

The place was silent as a deepness...or a graveyard. Clerks and analysts sat motionless. As Rachner walked across the room toward General Smith, the rattle of work resumed, sounding strangely self-conscious.

Smith was paging through one of the operation logs, just a little too fast to be getting much out of it. She waved him to the perch beside her. "Underville sees evidence of local involvement, but we still don't have anything solid." Her tone was casual, belying or ignoring the astounded silence of a moment before. "Have you got anything new? Any reaction from our Kindred ‘friends'?"

"Lots of reaction, Chief. Even the superficial stuff is intriguing. About an hour after the kidnap story broke, the Kindred turned up the volume on their propaganda—especially the stuff aimed at the poorer nation-states. The spew is ‘murder after Dark' fearmongering, but more intense than usual. They're saying that the kidnapping is the desperate act of decent people, people who realize that non-trad elements have taken over the Accord... ."

Everything was getting quiet again. Victory Smith spoke, a little sharply. "Yes, I know what they say. This is how I'd expect them to react to the kidnappings."

Maybe he should have begun with the big news. "Yes, ma'am, though they did respond a bit too quickly. Our usual sources hadn't heard about this beforehand, but now—well, it's beginning to look like the kidnappings are just a symptom that the Extreme Measures faction has achieved decisive control within the Kindred. In fact, at least five of the Deepest were executed yesterday, ‘moderates' like Klingtram and Sangst, and—alas—incompetents like Droobi. What's left is clever and even more risk-attracted than before—"

Smith leaned back, startled. "I—see."

"We haven't known for more than half an hour, ma'am. I've got all the area analysts on it. We see no related military developments."

For the first time, he seemed to have her full attention. "That makes sense. We're years away from the point where a war would benefit them."

"Right, Chief. Not war, not now. The Kindred grand strategy must still be to wear down the developed world as far as possible before the Dark, and then fight whoever is still awake....Ma'am, we also have less certain information." Rumors, except that one of his deep-cover agents had died to get them out. "It looks like Pedure is now the Kindred's head of external ops. You remember Pedure. We thought she was a low-level operator. Apparently she is smarter and more bloody-handed than we guessed. She's probably responsible for this coup. She may be first among the new Deepest. In any case, she's convinced them that you and, more particularly, Sherkaner Underhill are the key to the Accord's strategic successes. Assassinating you would be very difficult, and you've protected your husband almost as well. Kidnapping your children opens a—"

The General's hands tapped a staccato on the situation table. "Keep talking, Major."

Pretend we're talking about somebody else's cobblies."Chief, Sherkaner Underhill has talked often enough about his feelings on the radio, how much he values each child. What I'm getting now"—from the agent who had blown cover to get the word out—"is that Pedure sees almost no downside to grabbing your children, and any number of advantages. At best, she hoped to get all of your children out of the Accord, and then quietly play with you and your husband over a period of—years, perhaps. She figures that you could not continue in your present job with that sort of side conflict."