Tru scowled at that. ''I turn the evidence of an attempt to kill you over to him and his labs to figure out who did it. Instead, they come up with a whole new product line.''
Kris shrugged. ''If Al makes money off my attempted murders, I figure he'll make a fortune off what finally gets me.'' No one else saw the humor. ''So, Aunty Tru, why'd you call in the Navy? Run out of Marines?''
''Actually, it's Nelly I want.''
Kris raised an eyebrow. Tru was responsible for most of the software on Kris's pet computer; Nelly could do things very few computers could. Still, Sam, Tru's personal computer, was probably one of those few. ''We just upgraded her,'' Kris pointed out. ''I thought Nelly and I were about as far out on the bleeding edge as you dared go.''
''You are,'' Tru agreed. ''The last time I ran diagnostics on Nelly's new self-organizing circuitry, she was, gram for gram, the best in her class.''
Kris began drooling over the new, self-organizing computing gel the first time she set eyes on it. Akin to smart metal, this let the computer organize its circuitry at the molecular level as it went along, and modify it as needed. Kris wasn't sure whether she or Nelly was the most excited by it. ''So?''
''Nelly is greatly underutilized. I wonder if you might like to put her excess capacity to work on a challenge?''
Kris had learned to cringe when Tru said ''challenge.'' Yes, at six, Kris would do an excited dance at the word. At fifteen, the thought of having the best personal sidekick at school was primo plus. But Kris was a serving officer. Having her computer go down didn't just mean a quick stop by Aunty Tru's on the way home from school for repairs and cookies. If Nelly had locked up today, the Navy might be missing a boatload of people.
''What's caught your fancy?'' Kris said, taking a step back.
Tru beamed, unrepentant. ''Let me show you.''
Kris knew the room they headed for. There were clean rooms, and then there was Aunty Tru's lab. There was no need for special clothes. The airlock into what had been a spare bedroom spritzed Kris with a thin fog of nanos that lifted off the grime and dirt of the day… down to the five-nanometer level. The worktable along one white wall might be missing one of the latest gizmos for micro development. If so, the missing device was on order. What surprised Kris was the sight of a stasis box sitting in the middle of the table. Now, that was overkill.
More surprising, Tru did not flip it open.
''Your Aunt Alnaba sent that from Santa Maria.''
Great-aunt Alnaba was a real aunt, Great-grampa Ray's youngest girl. She'd specialized in xenobiology and devoted herself to studying the artifacts the Three left behind on Santa Maria. She'd spent a lifetime trying to figure out bits and pieces of a technology so far beyond humanity's present level that they had built jump points in space as highways across the stars. Grampa Ray had worked with Alnaba most of the last twenty years. He'd never met a challenge he couldn't handle. Kris grinned; cracking the technology of the Three and the present politics of humanity just might ruin Grampa Ray's perfect score. ''What's in it?''
Tru did not open the box but pulled a picture from her pocket. It showed a small square beside a penny for perspective. As wide as the penny was across, it was a bit thicker. ''That is a piece of rock from the mountain range along Santa Maria's North Continent. We cut those mountains up pretty badly during the war against the Professor.''
''Cut them up, hell. That Disappearing Box made them vanish, just vanish.'' Kris shook her head. ''Navy tried for fifty years to figure out how that little box worked. Don't know any more now than they did the day it arrived in the lab.''
''Yes,'' Tru agreed. ''But maybe they're starting too high on the tech food chain. You have to know how to use a screwdriver before you can take a clock apart. I don't think we've figured out the Three's equivalent of a screwdriver. A million years ago, we were using stone flakes for tools. Could that version of the human brain conceive of a screwdriver, even if you put one in its hand?''
Kris mulled that idea over, could add nothing to it, and waved at the stasis box. ''So, what is that?'' she repeated.
''A tiny part of the data storage that was locked up in those mountains.''
''Is it active?''
''I don't know.''
''What's it contain?''
''I don't know.''
''What do you know?''
Tru grinned. ''Nothing at all. The question is, what would you like to know?''
Kris eyed the picture, then the box. ''How would we find out if this rock has any data stored in it that can be retrieved?''
''By trying.''
''How?''
''Whatever we tried would have to be very sophisticated… or maybe very simple. It would need to be flexible and willing to adjust to just about any requirement. I don't even know what kind of power this thing operated on. We'd have to construct different power sources, apply them very carefully, and see if the mouse squeaks.''
Kris rubbed her nose; Nelly was suddenly feeling very heavy on her collarbone. ''Self-organizing circuitry, huh.''
''Self-organizing. Very powerful, and very well integrated with its human. Your Aunt Alnaba and her team tried several, what you might call, standard approaches. You know, the big lab, working long hours, everyone looking over everyone else's shoulders. No results. Then she asked me if I had any ideas. I told her I did.''
''And they were?''
''Ever read how the Professor contacted your Grampa Ray?''
''It got kind of complicated. Biology was never my favorite science,'' Kris dodged.
''Mine neither. What I found interesting, though, was the relationship between his sleeping brain and the tumor growing in his skull. Do you have any idea how important sleep is?''
''Only when I'm not getting enough of it.''
''Newborn babies take in as much of this new and confusing world as they can, then fall asleep to absorb it all. Study, sleep, study, sleep. How many times did I tell you when you were in high school that a good night's sleep was the best preparation you could do for a test?''
Kris chuckled, then, as honor required, gave her teenage response. ''A test is a test. What you put on the test is what matters, not what you put on a pillow.''
Tru scowled as she always had, then shook her head. ''My suggestion to Alnaba is that we put this in someone's personal computer who could sleep on it. See what their computer and their sleeping mind can make of it.''
''So, you're going to upgrade your Sammy with self-organizing circuitry.''
''Sadly, I can't afford it.'' So, why was Tru grinning?
''You didn't come up with this idea about the time I sprang for Nelly's last upgrade, did you?''
''No. Actually, I came up with the idea shortly after you first saw a computer with self-organizing circuits. You've never been one to pass up the latest computer whizbang.'' Tru's grin was once again unrepentant.
''And where did I pick up this bad habit?''
''Yes,'' Tru pouted, ''but us old retired folks can't keep up with every new bit of this and that. I've had to learn to live on a budget.''
Kris knew she was being finagled by the one person in human space who knew where all her fins were to agle.
''Tru, it might be fun to crack some Three technology, but just three hours ago I was nanoseconds away from being blown to quarks. I can't have Nelly down with a Three-induced headache.''
''And you won't. Sammy and I have come up with a multiple buffer approach that will keep what's going on around the chip from slipping over into your main processing.''
''Will or should?'' Kris demanded.
''Young woman, you really should talk to whomever was your teacher. You are far too paranoid about modern technology to survive in this modern world.''
''That's exactly who I am talking to. I recall a certain trig exam where I ended up with nothing but my own ten fingers to count on when my pet computer got into a do-loop chasing the value of pi.''