InterstellarNet: Origins (14 page)

Justin said, “I’m not convinced, Mom. Consider the deviousness of setting up Solar Services Corporation as a suspect in case the signal to the Centaurs is discovered. That’s a bit of inspired misdirection that may yet protect the ISI masterminds if this goes to trial.” He shook his head sadly. “No, what we’ve uncovered so far shows enough planning and chicanery that I suspect there’s more to be found.”

“Such as?” his mother prodded.

A good question. What worried Justin most—besides that he worked for killers? He said, “Something more than an unusual frequency to keep the recipe for practical nanotech from unintended ears. Although I can’t say how that could be done.”

“Jamming,” his father said.

“Jamming?”

“How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb?” Dad paused. “Can’t be done, it’s a hardware problem.”

Not that Justin was a programmer any more, or that anyone had used light bulbs since Centaur ultrabright LEDs had been introduced twenty-some years ago. “What hardware problem?”

“I’m stretching a point. Orbital mechanics is the issue.”

Dad had architected several satcom constellations and one interplanetary net. When Dean Matthews volunteered something about orbital mechanics or space-based comm systems, Justin took it as gospel. Even when he didn’t understand it.

“Dad, even I know interstellar receivers are very directional. To jam an incoming signal would take a space-based transmitter from the same direction as Alpha Centauri. But there are no such transmitters. Alpha Centauri is
way
off the plane of the ecliptic.”

“Hence the matter of orbital mechanics.”

“Dad, I’m running on no sleep, jet lag, and vats of coffee.”

“Are you familiar with the Ulysses mission? Ancient stuff: launched by NASA in 1990.” When no answer came, his father continued. “Isaac, display the mission trajectory for Ulysses.” Presumably Isaac Newton, an apt-enough name for an orbital-mechanics program.

The Jupiter hologram that had dominated one end of the room was replaced by a 3-V solar-system cartoon. In that representation a green thread arced out from Earth to Jupiter, where a bit of geometric magic occurred. The green bent sharply around Jupiter, in the process twisting almost at right angles to the gas giant’s orbit. The trajectory went on to become an elongated oval passing over the sun’s polar regions.

Dad pointed at Jupiter. “Through clever use of the gravity well, that 1992 Jupiter encounter changed Ulysses’ path enough to reach eighty degrees solar latitude.”

Yawning, Justin considered. “Which is proof by example that someone can, if they choose to, put a transmitter into a stable orbit steeply inclined to the Earth’s orbital plane.” He followed several summary links about the ancient mission. “And Ulysses accomplished that maneuver almost purely by choice of the Jupiter flyby trajectory. Fine, I take your point, Dad. And doubtless a lot more could be done using a probe with a full load of fuel.

“The message I found in Encode’s log requested a specific response date. ISI could easily have designed a mission to place a transmitter into jamming position. That is to say, to put a spacecraft roughly between Earth and Alpha Centauri when the return message was expected.”

Dad nodded agreement. “Of course even an orbit that grazes the sight line doesn’t
stay
on it,especially as the Earth moves. When the time came, the spacecraft would use its engines to keep nudging itself back onto the Earth/Centaur line of sight. The typical ET broadcast lasts a few weeks, providing enough repetitions to assure complete reception. It shouldn’t be a problem to carry enough fuel for that.”

“You described ISI’s probable defensive strategy as jamming. I think they could do better than that.” Ignoring his stomach’s rumbling, Justin chugged another cup of now luketepid coffee. The caffeine jolt cleared his thoughts and he went on. “This spacecraft we’re imagining, ready to transmit over the Centaur signal. It has a receiver, too. To know when to send, when to maneuver, it needs either to hear a ‘go’ command from the conspirators’ base or the Centaur signal directly. Rather than jam with random noise, which risks detection by, say, an amateur radio astronomer, why not simply beamcast an out-of-phase version of the Centaur signal?”

“That’s
good
, son. Cancel the signal, rather than jam it. Even though the Centaur’s beam will have dispersed to better than solar-system breadth, from Earth’s perspective the signal meant for the ‘Europans’ won’t exist. All the while, the Centaurs’ routine transmissions to us continue on the usual freqs.”

Mom looked skeptically at Justin. “You work for people that devious?”

Justin walked over to the window and pulled open the drapes. Somehow it had become midmorning. He gazed down to a slate-gray lake over which, appropriately, a squall was forming. From what little of the plot he had already uncovered, the answer to her question was obvious. “I’m afraid so.”

■□■

Too hyped and caffeinated to sleep, Justin returned to the Geneva spaceport and its anonymous comm. This research session required the exploration of unfamiliar systems and archives, but he persisted. His target: contractually required records from the years when ISI had run Europa base.

UNASA scientists had launched twenty-seven automated Jupiter missions during ISI’s tenure. Exploration was a risky business, even absent Jupiter’s intense and far-reaching radiation belts; five probes had failed. Four failures were thoroughly documented. The dearth of information about the fifth shouted out by comparison.

Concurrent faults in the telemetry and main radio subsystems had left very little for analysts to work with. The data shortfall from the fifth probe was compounded by a base-side computer glitch that knocked tracking radars offline for forty minutes and overwrote many of the prelaunch records. The mainframe problem, at least, had an explanation: a poorly tested operating-system upgrade, and spectacularly unfortunate timing for installing it.

All that could be said with certainty was that a probe had disappeared without a trace. ISI had recalled its base executive and the failed mission’s project manager in a futile attempt to placate UNASA.

That disgraced base executive was none other than ISI’s present chief of Security, Michael Zhang.

■□■

When Justin got back to his parents’ house, his father, looking haggard, was in the kitchen on the phone. Apparently Justin was not the only one unable to sleep.

The person on the other end did most of the talking, with Dad getting in only the occasional word or two. “Uh-huh … yes … okay. You’re sure? … Well, thanks. I owe you one.” Dad stayed seated in a dinette chair, his head resting against the wall. He closed his eyes.

Justin knew the answer but asked anyway. “Bad news?”

“There are advantages to having been around,” Dad said. “Good contacts, for example. I called an old friend, someone whose other friends might be able to do him a big favor. Vladimir Antinov was a military liaison to the original Lalande task force.”

Justin started measuring for another pot of coffee. He knew what question he would ask if he had had a high-level military connection, especially a retired general of the Russian strategic rocket forces. And Dad’s reaction to Antinov’s news had not been a happy one. “So military radar confirms an object in jamming position.”

Dean Matthews opened his eyes. “Just this once I would really like to have been wrong.”

8

Proscribed Technology Transfers:
specific inter-species exchanges of technical data that have been barred by one or both parties. These proscriptions are generally justified on grounds of economics (that the introduction of a particular technology would be too disruptive) or public policy (that the technology could shift military/political balances). Each species is left to establish its own technology policy.

Human technology proscriptions are decided upon and enforced by the Interstellar Commerce Union. The ICU, as its name suggests, has jurisdiction only over interstellar movements of technology. A technology that has been banned by the ICU for import may be freely researched.

—Internetopedia

Justin’s parents had semi-retired without relocating from Geneva, where the ICU was headquartered. Naturally, the current ICU Secretary-General was out of town. Worse, she was off-planet.

Mom had her own connections. Charise Ganes did not question her predecessor’s request for an urgent face-to-face meeting, and Ganes’s chief of staff pulled strings to get Justin on the next flight to the L5 station.

The habitat was located on the moon’s orbit, sixty degrees ahead of that orb. This position, one of two at which the Earth’s and the moon’s gravity fields meet in stable balance, provided a long-term fixed location for the habitat.

It made for a long trip.

Long after the shuttle’s engines fell silent, Justin dozed in his acceleration chair. Microgravity made him queasy, and the drugs for space sickness left him groggy. While other passengers floated about the cabin, oohing at magnificent views of Earth and moon, he tried to sleep. He wiggled in his chair, loosely fastened straps keeping him from drifting away. He needed to be rested for the upcoming meeting.

But his sleep, when it finally came, was troubled.

The conspiracy dated back at least to ISI’s lowball bid on the first Europa base-operations contract. That meant the skullduggery had been going on throughout Justin’s tenure at ISI. How could he have been so oblivious for so long?

Arlen Crawford, Justin’s current boss, had been at ISI for only four years. Arlen’s own boss, the Chief Operating Officer, was a long-term employee. The COO was a competent but unimaginative administrator. He might be a member of a cabal; he wouldn’t be its leader.

Justin’s semiconscious mind turned next to ISI’s charismatic Chief Executive Officer, Wayne LaPointe. One had only to chart ISI’s growth during LaPointe’s tenure as CEO to know that the man was brilliant. LaPointe had a reputation for ruthlessness and no tolerance for anything short of his personal concept of perfection.

Despite the management layers that separated them, Justin had been invited to many meetings with LaPointe. That had not seemed odd. Xenotechnomics played a big part in setting corporate strategy.

Should the CEO’s interest have been a red flag?

A company party floated up out of Justin’s memories. How many years past? At least ten, he thought. LaPointe had been there, not yet the CEO. About thirteen years ago, then, soon after Justin finished university and joined ISI, on one of his first trips to corporate headquarters. He remembered his excitement—and jitters—at being asked along.

The festivities had had to do with some new product rollout. Justin remembered the darkly paneled Glasgow pub, much favored by ISI headquarters staff, where the party was held but little about the project. Some early exploitation of Centaur superconducting technology…

■□■

LaPointe was holding forth to a gaggle of sycophants on the state of ISI’s business. Justin had sought other conversation, turned off by the fawning, overloud laughter. Hearing his name called, he had turned to see LaPointe waving him over.

“Justin.
Wunderkind
. Can we see you over here for a minute?”

“Of course.” What other response could a new hire make?

“We were discussing protectionism. You’re against that, right?”

The Matthews household sometimes had the atmosphere of a debating society. It was second nature to ask for clarification. “Are we discussing a specific situation?”

Two of the hangers-on exchanged looks of surprise. Imagine
not
agreeing to the exec’s leading question.

“Old history, Justin. We were discussing old history. The Protocol on Interstellar Technology Commerce, to be precise. The proposal on the floor”— LaPointe swept his arm grandly to encompass the group—“is that limiting imports of ET technology is protectionist and noncompetitive. As a xenotechnomist, I felt certain you’d have an opinion.”

How could Justin
not
have an opinion? Besides setting the policy that LaPointe had oversimplified, the protocol had also established the Interstellar Commerce Union. Not to mention that Bridget Matthews was the ICU’s founding Secretary-General.

Matthews was a common-enough name. Was it possible LaPointe hadn’t made the connection?

Justin picked his words carefully. “Protectionism has the right denotation but the wrong connotation. I would agree that the ICU charter includes import gatekeeping, to avoid any recurrence of something like the Lalande Implosion.”

“Gatekeeping.” With two stiff fingers, LaPointe thumped Justin on the chest. “Exactly my point. But to reverse your phrase, the wrong denotation.