"Do I detect a hint of personal aversion?"
"Not a bit. What are you doing?"
Rana gave him a skeptical look, then pointed at her screen. "An excavation. I'm matching layers to see if anything turns up."
Derec shuddered at the idea. The RI was scrambled from the collapse. Whole segments of it no longer "lined up" to form a functional matrix. What Rana was attempting to do made random chance seem predictable by comparison.
"That could take days. "
"Thales is doing the gross sorting for me. "
"Still…"
"Uh-huh. Do you have a better idea?"
Derec slid his chair to his own console and began entering commands. "As a matter of fact, no. But maybe one just as good. We can narrow it down by isolating out all other possible intrusive presences. A lot of com traffic goes through this thing"
"But most of it is buffered to avoid direct contamination of the positronic matrix," Rana concluded.
"Of course it is. So anything that got past that-"
"Would be worth a look. Of course. What about the RI performance record?"
"Save it. I'll look it over later."
Derec set up parameters for each type of communications link that the RI dealt with: regular com, systems interfaces with incoming shuttles, dialogues with maintenance drones, hotels, requisitions vendors, banks, security protocols with the various police services, subetheric links, interstellar traffic, interfaces with nonpositronic systems, and its own relays with its various service components. After establishing a firewall between the subject RI and Thales, he let the Group RI do the actual sorting, which took much less time than any other method. While the lists compiled, he wrote an instruction to search for mirror sites once everything was in a manageable state, looking for match points with the unexplained pathways Rana had found.
They worked in silence for nearly three hours. The amount of data to go through remained immense and intimidating, but Derec sensed progress.
The com chimed behind him. He looked over his shoulder and saw that Vice Senator-now Senator-Taprin was returning his call.
He punched ACCEPT.
"Mr. Avery, how are you? How can I help?"
"I'm fine, sir, if a little confused. There are a couple of matters I hope you can help me clear up. Phylaxis was taken off the investigation. I don't know if you were aware of that."
Taprin frowned. "No, but I don't keep that close tabs on what you do. Frankly, Clar tended to be very proprietary about the entire positronic issue."
Issue…? Derec thought. "Special Service assumed jurisdiction over the entire investigation, which is certainly their prerogative. But it 'is unorthodox. I'm not aware that they have any positronic specialists on staff."
"I didn't think they did, which was one reason to use you," Taprin said. "I'll look into it."
"Thank you, sir. The other matter has to do with protocol regarding the Union Station RI. I've learned that someone gave directions shortly after it was installed that certain problems with the RI were to be referred directly to the Calvin Institute rather than us. I wondered if you could find out who issued that directive."
"I can look into it, but my authority stops at the Auroran Embassy door. You could ask them yourself."
"I'd rather it came from a more official source."
"I see."
"Besides, the staff at Union Station wouldn't be under Auroran authority. Whoever issued that directive had to have Terran authority."
"True. Now that I think about it, it is odd. I'll see what I can find out for you. It might take some time. I'm swamped."
"Whatever you can give me, sir, I'd appreciate it."
"If, as you say, Special Service has removed you from the investigation-why are you interested?"
The question surprised Derec. He hesitated uncertainly. "Well… I think we'd all like to know what went wrong, Senator. I thought you'd appreciate the input. Besides, I think this pertains directly to the future of Phylaxis. But beyond that, it seems pertinent to Senator Eliton's work."
Tarpin nodded slowly. "Mmm. Very true. I'll see. "
"Thank you."
The screen went blank, leaving Derec with an odd, displaced feeling.
Why am I interested?
"We have something matching up," Rana said.
Derec hurried back to the console. On the main screen, columns lined up. As he watched, lines from each became highlighted, then isolated to another window.
"Maintenance…" Derec read aloud. "Maintenance… maintenance… maintenance… all the exit pathways are mirroring to maintenance communications?"
"That's what it's looking like. But the signals are not transmitted."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean they are strings of code going through the RI and routed back to the relevant site," Rana explained. "They're one-to-one. Something at the pathway site is injecting code directly."
Derec stared at the configurations on her screens. "There's no routing… no buffer…? It's as if something is directly attached to the physical node. ".
"Doesn't make sense, I know, but that's what it's showing."
"We have to get in there and look at these components."
Rana laughed sharply. "Before Imbitek rips them out? Good luck."
Derec drummed his fingers. "They can't. The Calvin Institute has to supervise removal of the positronic components-satellite systems and all."
Rana pursed her lips, but said nothing.
Derec rapped his knuckles impatiently on the console and headed back to the comlink. "And so should we." He punched in a code.
"Calvin Institute. How may I direct your call?"
"I want to speak to…" He hesitated, licked his lips, and sighed heavily. "I wish to speak to Ariel Burgess, please. Tell her it's Derec Avery from the Phylaxis Group."
Eleven
Ariel got out of bed with the feeling that something was not right. Perhaps it was only that she had gotten five hours of sleep.
She found Mia in the living room, occupying one of the oversized sofas. Her portable datum propped on her lap, a cup of coffee on the end table, and various disks scattered on the pillow beside her, she looked more like a business traveller than a government agent. Ariel was larger than Mia, and the borrowed robe seemed to swallow the smaller woman.
The picture window was milky-white, allowing in morning light but not the view.
"Good morning, Ariel," R. Jennie said, trundling in with a tray of breakfast.
"'Morning" Jennie."
Mia looked up and smiled briefly. "Hi."
"You look better," Ariel said. "How do you feel?" She glanced around the room until she found Bogard, halfway between Mia and the door, standing against the wall. It seemed somehow shrunken now, not nearly as imposing as the previous night.
"Rested," Mia said. She winced slightly. "Sore. My treatments weren't finished."
R. Jennie set the tray on the breakfast table by the window. Ariel thought about moving it to the coffee table before Mia, but it was not too far away. And Bogard still made her a little nervous.
Ariel sat down and lifted the cover from her eggs and hamsteak. "I'll make the call to take care of that after I eat. What are you going to do afterward?"
"After what?"
"After you're healed."
"That's what I'm trying to decide. I can't very well hide out here for the rest of my life. And I doubt you could get me an open passport to Aurora."
"You might be surprised what I can get you."
Mia raised her eyebrows, but said nothing. She tapped the keypad on her datum for a few minutes while Ariel carved her ham and drank down half her cup of coffee. Ariel wondered if she should have Jennie prepare a large carafe for the day.
Mia sighed heavily, then set the datum aside. She rubbed her face, then folded her arms. "I can't run. If I do, we'll never find out who did this."
"The media are all blaming the Managins."
"That might be partly true," Mia said. "I think it was Managins that actually did the killing. I've started a search protocol on a couple of names that might be relevant and one of them came up within seconds: Lemus Milmor. He's a known affiliate of OSMA, the Order for the Supremacy of Man Again. He's in our database under a 'To Be Watched' flag because he was rejected by a Settler's group for assaulting two people."