“Check your filters,” the chief suggested. “Radiation isn’t like oxygen or smoke. It may have a set that blocks out constant sources. If that fusactor had been there for a while, the system may have learned that filter but hasn’t had time to unlearn it and learn the new location.”
He frowned. “I thought I’d cleared those.”
“That’s the first symptom,” I said.
“What?”
“When a system doesn’t do what you want, the first symptom that you’ve got excess user head space is the notion of ‘huh. I thought I cleared those,’” I said. “Trust me, this is the bitter voice of experience talking.”
Dumaurier pulled up a chair and sat at the console. “All right. I’m checking the aspect filter. Radiation is on. Everything else is off. The display is raw level. The sensitivity is max. Filters are off.” He shrugged and looked up.
I walked up behind his chair and looked over his shoulder to see a full screen of options. “These are all the filters?” I asked.
He nodded. “You can see, they’re all off.”
“Scroll down?”
“What?”
“There are more on the next page,” I said.
He leaned into the screen as if it would look clearer if his nose was five centimeters closer and scrolled the screen down. Three new filters appeared, one of which was checked. He unchecked it and new radiation sources appeared on screens all around the room. He shook his head. “I’m flabbergasted.”
“Doctor, if I had a credit for every time I’ve been bitten by something like that, I’d have paid off my ship by now.” I looked around the room. “So what are all these?”
We started around again. Either Dumaurier or Oscella identified a fusactor or some other fixed device for every source. One was actually a research reactor. We got all the way around the room but didn’t find anything that one or the other of them couldn’t identify.
“Damn,” the chief said. “What else are we missing?”
“Other than it might be in the areas that aren’t covered?” I asked.
“Besides that,” she said.
“Dead sensor head?” I asked.
Dumaurier shook his head. “They fail once in a while. We get a maintenance alert from the network that it’s missing a node and we fix it.”
“Look at something else,” the chief said.
“What?”
“Bring up a display of something else. Something common. Nitrogen levels. That should be about the same everywhere.”
He frowned but clicked keys. In a few moments every screen in the room turned cyan. He clicked a few more keys and pulled the sensitivity down so the solid colors became more like smoke than solid colors. He stood and spun in place to look at the screens. “I don’t see what—” His voice chopped off as he looked at a screen that showed a fuzzy oval hole in the cyan.
“That’s not right,” he said. He crossed to the screen and peered into it. “That’s not right at all.”
He strode back to the console and clicked a few keys to bring the flawed display onto his local system. A few more clicks and the screen became dotted with four-digit numbers. “These are node IDs,” he said. “That node is not detecting any nitrogen.” He ran through some keystrokes, making the color change but not the hole. “It’s not detecting anything that I’ve tried.”
He opened a command window and ticked off some options. A dialog opened and scrolled a series of what looked like gibberish to me, but the familiar VSI codes would probably appear that way to him. The dialog stopped scrolling. The last message appeared. “Test Complete.”
“That node just responded to a full diagnostic reset and query. It claims it’s fully functional,” he said.
He popped up another screen and columns of numbers started filling it up. All the numbers in every column were zero.
He took a deep breath and sat back in his chair. After a moment he looked up at Oscella. “Captain, this should not happen. That node is not broken. It is not off the network. It appears to be functioning perfectly. Every sensor detects a level of zero for every characteristic it’s supposed to measure.”
“Why is that not a malfunction?” she asked.
“Because the diagnostic routine checks to see if the sensor is working. It’s detecting what it’s supposed to, but sending a value of zero for that reading.”
“So what? Somebody sabotaged the detector head?” she asked.
“That’s what it looks like from here.”
“Somebody has something to hide? From a smoke alarm?” she asked. “Who would ever think like that?”
“Somebody who knew it could detect radiation,” the chief said. “But didn’t know enough about it to only poke out that one eye.”
“So they poked out all of them?” Oscella asked.
“Brute strength,” I said. “Sometimes it’s the best choice.”
“Wouldn’t somebody have noticed that?” the chief asked. “The nice young woman we met earlier seemed to have a good sense of what she was looking at.”
Dumaurier clicked a few keys, erasing the overlay and magnifying the location. “Maybe not,” he said. “It’s located above a building near the docks. Normal gases like oxygen and carbon dioxide wouldn’t show much variation from hour to hour and day to day.”
“How long has that sensor been sending zeros?” the chief asked.
He pursed his lips, pulled up a screen of numbers, and started working backward. “A while,” he said, still scrolling back. “It’s zeros all the way down. I’m into last stanyer.” The scrolling stopped. “That’s the end of this file. It’s all zeros on this head. At least eighteen months.”
“You said it was above a building. What building?” I asked.
He brought the magnified image up again and traced an oblong shape off to the side. “That’s the chandlery. This building must be one of their warehouses. You have a better read on it, Captain?” He looked at Oscella.
She stepped a little closer and leaned over his shoulder. She frowned and then scowled.
“What is it?” Dumaurier asked.
“Yeah, that’s the chandlery,” she said. “But unless I miss my guess and Riordan was off on his assessment this morning, that building is the long-term storage warehouse.”
“The one they put abandoned cargo in?” I asked.
She nodded, her lips pushed into a grim line.
“Maurice?” the chief said. “What’s the process for getting a head replaced?”
“I send a work order to station maintenance with the head ID number and a locator number. They send somebody out to pull the old one and plug in a new one.”
“That’s it?” she asked.
“That’s it. When the new head connects it looks for the nearest mesh node, assigns itself the right number, and starts collecting data.”
“How long does that process take?” she asked.
“A stan or two. Depends on the availability of a maintenance worker.”
“Where’s the local sector operator for that sector?” I asked.
He pulled a new overlay onto his console. “There,” he said, pointing to a spot just off the thoroughfare that led to the chandlery.
“Will that operator see the node getting replaced?” the chief asked.
“Not inside the station, no. They don’t have any kind of windows.”
“How about when the node goes off-line and then comes back up?” she asked.
“Oh, certainly. When this node comes down, the system will flag a disabled node until the new node goes up. If they’re looking they’ll see the new one go up when it establishes contact with the net.” He paused and looked back and forth between the chief and me. “Why?”
“Whoever hacked that node didn’t do it by climbing up to it,” I said.
“You think they’ll just compromise the replacement?” Dumaurier asked.
“Maybe not immediately but eventually, yes,” I said. “Who has network access to those nodes?”
; He shrugged. “Every operator, including the ones here.”
The chief blinked. “All the operators can access any node?”
“Yes. We designed it to provide a redundancy in the event of a catastrophe.”
I felt like we took two steps back for every step forward.
“Chief?” Oscella asked. “If this were your operation, what would you do? Forget what we think we know.”
The chief shrugged. “It’s going to depend on the goal.”
“If the goal is to safeguard your logistics supply line? What then?”
The chief shook her head. “First, I’d never rely on only one source.”
“How many?” Oscella asked.
“At least two, possibly three. I’d do what I could to control as much of it as I could with my own resources.”
“So, right there, we’ve an anomalous data point,” Oscella said.
“Maybe,” the chief said. “Barbells aren’t cheap. If I had only one and I lost it, I’d have to use less-reliable sources.”
“Follow that line,” I said.
“First I’d try to mask my actions as much as possible. Operate through ports large enough to blend in,” she said. “I don’t know that I’d resort to any kind of extortion.”
“Even as insurance?” Oscella asked.
The chief shook her head. “I wouldn’t but I’m a special case.”
“I can’t argue that,” Dumaurier said, almost under his breath.
Oscella grinned at him.
“From the wide-angle view, this is an impossible task,” the chief said.
“Break it down,” I said. “Captain Oscella, can you get your people out into the areas not covered by the network?” I asked. “That’s going to take time.”
“They’re already out,” she said with a grin.
“Thanks,” I said. “Dr. Dumaurier, can we look at the display that showed us this node again?”
“Sure, but why?” he asked.
“We focused on this one so quickly, I didn’t notice if there were others.”
He nodded and pulled up the cyan overlay.
I started with the screen nearest me and gave each one a solid perusal as I walked around the room.
“Here’s one,” the chief said, standing in front of a screen across the room from me. From that distance I didn’t see what she was looking at. “It’s a tiny hole.”
“Nodes overlap,” Dumaurier said. “The most populated sectors have more nodes per square meter so they overlap their fields.”
The idea that had been bumping against my brain surfaced. “Zeros. Dr. Dumaurier, can you query that database for nodes sending all zeros?”
“You’re thinking there may be more compromised nodes?” he asked, sitting down at his console again.
“Yes, I’m not sure how that helps us, but if there are other nodes out there, they’re going to point to places we might want to look at more closely.”
The chief’s brows furrowed as she frowned at her boots. “Camouflage.”
“Chief?” I asked.
She shook her head. “If I were doing this, I wouldn’t compromise just one. It would be a big flashing red arrow if discovered.”
“You couldn’t do many or the probability of detection goes up,” I said. “They’re easy to spot.”
She shook her head again. “Only if you know to look for them. How long did we mess around before we found one? And we weren’t operating in the standard mode.” She looked to Dumaurier. “How hard would those be to spot using the standard time-weighted filtering?”
He shook his head. “I’d have said ‘not hard at all’ except for one thing.” He pointed to the screen we’d first discovered. “That one has been returning false data for over a stanyer and we didn’t notice. It wasn’t masked by node overlap. It wasn’t particularly hard to find once we stopped using the standard protocols.”
“Doctor, would you do the query looking for zeros? Let’s see how many there are,” I said.
“Yes, of course.” He addressed his console.
I leaned over to the chief. “What are we missing?”
“Pip,” she said. “We’re operating on too many assumptions. I think we need to start testing our hypothesis in a more concrete manner.”
“You still like the abandoned freight barn as a hiding place?”
“I do,” she said. “We need to find out a couple of things. One, how many people work that overseer job. Two, how often the guard changes.”
“What if it’s only one?” I asked.
She grinned. “We have an opportunity to do some recon and the local constabulary to give us cover.” She nodded toward Oscella. “I don’t know how much probable cause she needs to act, but it’s likely to be far less than TIC would require.”
“Particularly since her boss got rolled?” I asked
The chief grinned and nodded.
Dumaurier waved a hand at me. “I put a priority on the maintenance order. It should be up within a stan.”
“Thanks,” I said and crossed to Oscella with the chief trailing behind. “Where are we?”
Oscella shrugged. “I’ve got people out combing the areas not covered by the network. I’ve also filed an inquiry to the station management board about why there are parts of the station not being covered.”
“I wondered about that myself,” the chief said. “If you’re going to do a firewatch in a closed ecology, leaving spaces uncovered only guarantees that’s where the emergency will start.”
Dumaurier joined our little scrum. “I’ve submitted it on the budget every stanyer. It’s always denied.”
“Any rationale?” the chief asked.
“Not enough money in the budget.” He made a sour face.
The chief frowned. “Does Kondur know this?”
He shrugged. “Mr. Kondur and I don’t exactly run in the same circles. He appoints the SMB to run the operation but doesn’t sit on it.”
“How does somebody get on that board?” I asked.
“Kondur appoints them. I just said that,” Dumaurier said.
“Yeah, but how does he find candidates? How long do they serve? How many people are on the board?” I asked.
Dumaurier looked at Oscella. “I know there are nine on the facilities planning committee. You know the total?”
“Thirteen on internal security. Nine on space threat analysis and planning.”
“How many of these committees are there?” the chief asked.
“One for every specialization area,” Oscella said. “There’s one for freight management, an operations management committee that governs business regulation and building codes.” She shrugged. “I know there are others that I can’t think of right now.”
“Medical,” Dumaurier said. “I think there are five on that one.”
“That’s quite an infrastructure,” I said.
Oscella shrugged. “It’s a big station. Verkol Kondur is many things, but even a superman couldn’t manage a station this size without delegating most of the management to others.”
The chief and I shared a glance.
“Do we wait for the new node to sync up or head back to the ship?” I asked.
The chief looked at the console and around the room before answering. “Let’s wait. It shouldn’t be long. A few ticks won’t matter getting back to the ship, if it shows up nothing.”
“You think that’s what it’s going to be? Nothing?” Dumaurier asked.
She nodded. “I think it’s sleight-of-hand. They—the nebulous they—want us looking at these nodes. Why even block out the nodes that leave signposts pointing to your operation when you can use places that have no coverage at all?”
“Misdirection,” Oscella said.
“Yeah. That’s what I’m thinking.” The chief looked at the console again. “I hope I’m wrong but I’m afraid we just tipped our hand to anybody watching that node.”
“They know we’ve tumbled to them?” Dumaurier asked.
“Well, tha
t we’ve tumbled to one of them. Perhaps ignoring the others with readings all zero will be enough.”
“You think there are more?” Dumaurier asked.
“We already found another one. Your query should discover how many more there are,” the chief said. “If the replaced node reveals something, then we’ll see.”
He sat down at the console again and started shuffling data.
“Where is Pip?” I asked, more to myself than to the chief.
She shook her head. “Kondur’s message said they had him. We’re assuming it’s the pirates out on the mega.”
“You think we have two groups after us?” I asked.
“Not us, necessarily, but Pip? Wouldn’t surprise me to learn there are people looking for him all across the Western Annex.” She shot me a look and a shrug. “But it’s probably a long shot. They wouldn’t have told Kondur if it wasn’t related to this shipment.”
“We still don’t have the can,” I said. “Unless they snuck up on the ship and tied it on while we’ve been here.” My brain felt like a rat on a wheel, running and running but getting nowhere.
Chapter 29
Dark Knight Station: 2376, March 12
The new node came on line, closing the gap on the cyan filter but offering no other information.
“What if there’s no bomb?” I asked, leaning close to the chief and keeping my voice down. “What if this is nothing more than a simple assault and warning?”
The chief nodded. “I’ve thought that from the beginning, but it’s a threat we have to take seriously. They have a long history of using explosive arguments.”
“Where else could they have stashed Pip?”
“There’s always the possibility that we’re overthinking it. That they have him out there in a ship tucked behind a rock,” she said.
“If we find him, will it change anything?” I asked.
She looked at me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, they’re holding him to make sure we deliver. So? Will whatever you’ve got behind the curtain make any difference to that process of going out, swapping cans, and coming back?”
“You’re willing to leave him here that long?”
“Not my first, or even second, choice. If we get that can on today, we can be underway tomorrow. We’ll be back in—what? A week?”
By Darkness Forged Page 21
