A whole row of numbers flicked over to maximum.
“Well, there’s your entrance.” Lipinski’s pen was already activating the recall command. “Isn’t it about time we talked about security?”
Dobbs hesitated. Then, almost angry with herself for not being willing to say it, she told him, “There’s a non-sentient coordination program that’s responsible for spotting everything that moves and then either routing it or stopping it. But, considering the circumstances, there’ll be at least one Guild member on sentry.”
To Lipinski’s credit, he didn’t hesitate for even a second. He activated his searcher and with a few short hand commands, lowered it slowly into the net. His gaze fastened itself on the numeric readouts.
“And of course,” he said, “any… member who notices something unauthorized in your network will stop it themselves.”
“Of course,” replied Dobbs drily.
“Thought so.” Two rows of the figures now matched up perfectly. Dobbs glanced at the main screen. A thin, slow, emerald thread extended into the white guild net.
They had made it through the Drawbridge. Dobbs’ heart began to pound slowly, heavily.
“So, we need to duck the… membership.” Lipinski’s eyes never flickered from the screens. Dobbs realized this might be how he picked up his habit of talking to walls and floors. “Can you at least want to tell me what I should be looking for?”
“Anything that moves.” As she spoke the numbers flickered so fast it could have been a glitch in the board lighting. “Like that.”
It did it again. Dobbs hit the FREEZE key.
“And what,” said Lipinski calmly. “Was that?”
“The sentry,” said Dobbs. The numbers stayed steady for a good twenty seconds. “Okay, we should be clear. Move slow.”
Lipinski considered the scene in front of him. He wrote his commands carefully on the board and touched the two activation keys. The display changed, one number per nervous heartbeat until the six-digit coordinates had ticked over and they had moved two inches.
The screen flickered.
“Damn,” hissed Dobbs under her breath and hit FREEZE again.
“Didn’t think they let you swear,” said Lipinski, picking out the next set of coordinates.
“They don’t let me break into the Guild’s main data hold either,” she answered, watching the numbers change and trying not to wish they would hurry. If they moved too fast now, someone would spot them. They had to be glacial. It was their only protection. “I’m experimenting with rebellion.”
“We’re both experimenting with rebellion,” Lipinski reminded her.
“That’s all right.” She laid her hand on his shoulder. “If this doesn’t work, we’ll both be experimenting with unemployment.”
She shouldn’t have said that, because it allowed her to wonder what would really happen if she were caught. There were no non-guild Fools. There were on-line members, field members, and station members. That was all.
Except maybe it wasn’t.
Lipinski moved the scan gently to the next sector. The counter flicked off the numbers as the scan commenced. The screen display stayed steady. The bottom row of stats flashed green.
“Got it,” breathed Dobbs. “All right. We’re looking for anybody who made an emergency return here, or who doesn’t have a code in the current activities entry.”
“What do you guys do when somebody dies?” Lipinski steered the searcher to a different sub-sector.
“Fools don’t die,” she said and Verence’s memory squeezed her heart.
“You just fade away?” Lipinski cocked an eyebrow towards her.
“Something like that, yes.” Her index finger hovered over the FREEZE command, but the screen stayed steady.
Thank you, Cyril. Thank you.
The board beeped once. Success.
“Finally.” Lipinski wrote a new set of coordinates and a new speed on the display. Dobbs opened her mouth and closed it again. Lipinski was preparing to leave as slowly as they had entered.
Ground-side pilot, she chided herself.
The screen flickered twice. Dobbs stabbed her finger on the FREEZE command. The display stopped dead. Dobbs’ heart filled her mouth. She pictured the Fool inside circling the strange signal, lifting it up, reaching inside it to see what was there, and finding something totally unfamiliar, and totally unauthorized.
But the screen stayed steady. Dobbs wished fiercely that she was in there. She should have gone in. She could lie in there. She could fast talk the other members. She’d know who that little flicker was. Cohen, or Brooke, Guild Master Havelock, or a total stranger. She could reach into them and make them understand…
I could get spotted and chased out in three seconds, she reminded herself.
“Okay.” She squeezed Lipinski’s shoulder. “Try it.”
Lipinski re-wrote the travel commands and the signal started its slow glide back to them.
After another eon, the display wrote COMPLETED across itself. Dobbs let out a long breath and felt all the strength in her knees run away like water.
“Damn, we are good!” Lipinski squeezed her hand where it rested on the counter. Dobbs hesitated just one second before she pulled her hand away and used it to fish out her pen and tap the READOUT selection on the open menu.
Their slow, nerve-wracking search had found five answers. Four of them were hospital level admissions; one for injuries, three for illness. The last entry was for a Fool that did not have a current location or assignment.
Theodore Curran. Registry number; five.
Five? Dobbs’s mind almost refused to process the number. Five? The missing Fool was one of the Guild founders? A sick sensation crawled into her stomach. Cohen had said the stranger was somebody fast, somebody old.
How long has he been gone? What’s he doing out there? Did they let him leave? Did he run away? What’s he doing out there? Why didn’t they say anything? Tell anybody?
Why am I thinking of the Guild like I’m separate from them?
The sick sensation reached up for her heart.
“Evelyn?” said Lipinski quietly. “Are you going to be okay?”
Her shoulders drooped all on their own. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
He reached towards her but she stood up and moved away before he could touch her. “Erase that file, Rurik, and the system records. We’re in enough trouble as it is.”
I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. I don’t want to think about what’ll happen if anyone found out I showed a Houston how to crack the network. Not even Cohen would forgive me for that.
She let the stair hatch slam shut behind her and realized she didn’t have the slightest idea what she was going to do next. She leaned against the wall and pressed her palm against her forehead. The Guild was always the final answer. If there was a question, or if she was afraid, or in too deep, she went back to the Guild. That was the way it was. The Guild was what pulled her out of the war she had started with her birth. It gave her coherence and purpose and guidance. Where did she go now that the Guild wasn’t safe anymore?
Dobbs straightened up. She couldn’t let anybody see her like this.
It’s not the whole Guild, she told herself as she descended the stairs. It’s a few of the Masters, at most. We’re just proving we can be as stupid and paranoid as Human Beings, that’s all. Cohen will have some idea who we should go to with this. Maybe Brooke will have some ideas too. As soon as this is out in the open, it’ll all get sorted out. It just needs to get brought out. That’s all.