Delt nodded. “Any more flapjacks?” he asked, hopefully.
I started to rise, but Maauro puts a hand on my shoulder. “I think he would prefer ones that couldn’t double as discs for skeet shooting.”
I sat back down. Maauro smiled, and ran her hand through my hair, then headed downstairs.
Delt waited a minute, looked at the door then back at me. “Things are different.”
I nodded.
“There’s been progress?” he said, trying not to grin.
I nodded again.
“Ah, we are at the stage of, ‘stuff not for casual discussion.””
I nodded vigorously.
“Good for you. Lucky bastard.”
We sat in companionable silence for a minute.
“I came back as soon as I decently could,” I finally said. “There’s a part left undone, the final part.”
“The squadron” he said.
“Yeah.”
“After breakfast,” he suggested. “I have a tear down to do on an old job, a Tunnan, believe it or not. We can talk as we work.”
“Sure.”
Maauro appeared behind us with some more flapjacks and something in a cup that steamed and smelled of chocolate. Delt looked at the pancakes with relish as Maauro handed him the plate. She sipped her chocolate drink.
We deferred any further discussion for breakfast. More of Delt’s staff showed up. He waved and exchanged the occasional shouted abuse with them. Two small agrocasters landed on the field and rolled over to the chem-tanks to refill on fertilizers or insecticides. It struck me that a slow-paced spot like this wasn’t the worst way to while away your time. Particularly with good company such as I had now.
After breakfast, we wander over to the main hanger. Delt sent the Morok and two other mechanics off to another job, saying that he had Wrik and me to help. The area around the field is becoming busier, with three customers coming in and the agrocasters leaving to be replaced by a small aircraft, which disembarks some local businessmen at the far end of the field before refueling and taking off again.
I sense movement north of the field through my spybees. A quick scan shows a small animal called a raccoon-dog, though to my observation the six-footed creature looks very little like a dog or a raccoon. I dismiss the creature and join Wrik and Delt, who are standing by the side of a barrelish and very old aircraft that nearly fills the hanger with its dull-orange body. Wrik is shaking his head.
“Man, I can’t believe it. Look at this thing; it has to be over a hundred years old.”
Delt nods. “I haven’t seen a Tunnan outside of a history book before this. I haven’t found a manual on the net anywhere.”
I scan it with a practiced eye. “The design is clearly military, and my Confed database indicates it is essentially a flying missile battery with a rotary cylinder for anti-shipping missiles. They haven’t been in front line service for the over seventy-three years.”
“Yeah, Van de Hollandanse converted it to local passenger use about fifty years ago, been in a salver’s yard for the last eleven years. Now, they’re making it into a fire-tanker. We get some hellacious fires in the grasslands, real danger to isolated farms, small towns and such.”
“It’s a good type for it,” Wrik says. “That big bay where the rotary magazine went should hold at least a thousand gallons of retardant.”
“Yeah, but pulling out the avionics is a job. What worries me are the bay servo doors. They have to snap open in a hundredth of a second. Equipment like that isn’t off the shelf and the ones on her are original. They’re shot. If I have to have them machined then it’s really going to kick up the price.”
“Let me see the part,” I say.
Delt gestures to the aircraft’s underside, we both stoop to go under. Delt reaches up and opens a panel. He slowly actuates the doors, and they cycle open at a safe speed for ground crews. I duck under then stand in the capacious bay. There is a false ceiling over my head where they put in a deck for passengers. I suspect that the poor installation stressed the lower bay which has transmitted the stress to the servos. I scan in microwave and other sensors. Delt is indeed correct. The servos are in poor shape and one is 11.43 operating hours from failure.
“The mechanism could have been designed better,” I say.
“Yeah. Tunnans were notorious for bay door failures. They were attritions units rushed into service during the early days of the Conchirri War. No one expected them to last a long time.”
“I am glad my own creators did not subscribe to such slipshod thinking.” Delt gives me a surprised look. I have seen this expression before, it usually means my biological companion has forgotten my origin.
I begin to disassemble the most distressed of the servos and its hinge.
“Ah, Maauro, Honey, what are you doing?”
“There is only so much I can determine from an exterior scan. I will disassemble one and do a full scan. Then I will need to feed the equivalent amount of high quality metals into my inner factories to extrude new parts.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I will have to reorient my factories, which are used primarily for small parts, to make these larger pieces. It will take an hour and seven minutes per unit, including the hinge. I’ll make four and a spare. They will be considerably more robust than these originals. There is also no need for a fire bomber to have doors snapping out at military speed, it will take a mere second to alter the program.”
He nods enthusiastically. “Yeah, I thought of that too, but between the reprogramming and the metallurgy, I thought it was over my head.”
It is only us in the bay, and I pitch my voice so it will not reach Wrik. “It shouldn’t be. You’re an excellent practical engineer. Your school grades indicate that this should not be beyond you.”
A spasm of anger crosses his face, followed by a rueful expression.
“I apologize. I seem to have—”
He places a hand on my shoulder, something I normally only permit with Wrik. “Don’t worry about it. You won’t be the first one to notice that I haven’t lived up to my billing.”
I am left uncertain of what to say.
“Why don’t you start on that servo?” he says into the lengthening silence. “I’ll get these others three out and drain the lines of hydraulic fluid.”
“Excellent. I will scavenge some metal and reprocess the old unit. Is there an area with power where I can be undisturbed?”
He gives me a curious look. “You need to concentrate?”
“No, Delt, it is not like that, but it requires me to alter my body to feed metal in and out. For a while, I must look more like a machine than a girl. I don’t like that.”
He strokes his chin. “Then you don’t have to do it.”
“That is kind, but I wish to help. I simply want some privacy to do it in.”
“There’s nothing that needs doing today in Hanger II. I’ll tell everyone to keep out.”
“Thank you. I suppose it is foolish to feel this way.”
This time he grins. “Not at all, I never knew a girl who didn’t want a little privacy now and then.”
I start to bend down to duck out of the bay.
“Maauro.”
I look up.
“Maybe tonight I spend a little time with my old engineering texts and a little less time with the bottle.”
I consider— a very careful response is called for. “I think that would be a good use of time. I am available to help, if you like.”
A grin again splits the broad, pleasant face. “Hmmnnn, an evening of math problems with a quantum computer to hand, I might come up with a whole new invention.” He turns to the servo, a power-spanner in his hand.
I slip under the ship only to face Wrik crabbing in toward me.
“You guys were in there for a while. I was begi
nning to wonder if Delt was making a pass at you. Be just like him.” He says it with a smile so I know the accusation is not serious.
I smile back. “What happens in the bomb bay stays in the bomb bay. Oh, and don’t come looking for me for the rest of the afternoon I will be manufacturing parts in Hanger II. Delt could use some help getting the other servos out. Keep all the metal; I will reprocess it. You can leave it at the door to the hanger.”
“Sure,” he says and passes me on his way to help Delt. I head for the hanger, detouring by the scrapyard to find a disappointing lack of high quality metal to be reprocessed. I may not be able to make the fifth spare, as some material is always lost in reprocessing. I hear Delt’s voice as he calls to his Morok foreman and tells him to keep clear of Hanger II. The big double doors of the hanger stand partially open, I close them behind me. I extrude a power cord and plug into the wall. Between my fingers and a quick application of the plasma torch, the servo is disassembled and examined in less than a minute.
I settle in on the floor and begin setting up my internal factories for production when my spybee sends an updated report on the raccoon dog. It has moved. But before I disregard it, something strikes me as curious. The raccoon dog had not changed locations for a period of 1.6713 hours, this despite the fact that the afternoon has been growing steadily hotter.
I send a level II inquiry to my spybee and draw more detail. The raccoon-dog is utterly still in a fashion no natural animal could be.
I pull free of the wall instantly and leap to my feet. The hanger has high windows that are fully open for cross ventilation. My jump takes me to a girder then I fling myself out the window. In midair, I adopt a camouflage pattern suitable to grasslands. This is less for the raccoon dog and more to prevent Wrik, Delt or any of the rest of the staff from spotting me.
I race in a semicircular path to come up behind the false animal. Fortunately, the grass prevents me from kicking up dust, though the longer stalks whirr through the air as if under attack by a berserk weed-wacker. I am forced to slow to preserve stealth.
As I close behind a slight rise of ground. I see Delt and Wrik 114.51 meters away, walking between Hanger One and an out building. This causes a reaction from my quarry; it starts heading for the hanger I have just vacated. I realize that will give it a clear, but concealed, line of sight on Wrik and Delt either for observation or attack. This is intolerable. I double-back at full speed toward the hanger.
But the raccoon dog is not blind, either. I see its head swivel at an angle impossible for the animal it mimics. I cut in on one side so it cannot pass me and get to Wrik. It dodges to the left, leaping through the transom. I follow. This time there is no concealing the impact as we tangle in the air and fall to the ground, rolling and striking.
Up close, the raccoon dog is a poor simulation, but it scrabbles at me with claws that would have flayed a human. I slam it to the floor, disrupting its circuits. The machine is not occupied by Lilith, as the HCRS were, this is a pure robot, but it is connected to her in real time. My intruder programs dive into the struggling raccoon dog. But Lilith has seen my attacks before, and her barriers are better, I cannot control the squirming machine. I must admire how much she has improved her defenses.
But I think much faster than Lilith, who is biological in origin despite her augmentation. Before she can order the machine to self-destruct I drive my hand into it and obtain direct access to its systems, simply tearing out the self-destruct charge. The primer detonates in my hand, a booby trap that would have torn off a human limb but does nothing beyond cosmetic damage to me.
Before I can break through the conventional channel between Lilith and her machine, she severs it. The machine goes into autistic mode and continues to struggle. But Lilith may not have been fast enough, there is trace data captured that may be of use when I have time to analyze it.
“Maauro,” Wrik calls from outside, “is everything all right?” From the sound of his voice, he is just outside the door, probably brining the other servos over.
I strike the raccoon dog again and then leap to the sturdy metal container against the wall. I lift the lid and stuff the shattered machine inside, reseating myself on the lid just as Wrik opens the door, a concerned look on his face.
“Is everything ok?” he repeats.
“Yes,” I reply. “I am working on the replacement parts. Now, if you don’t mind, I would like a little privacy.”
His eyebrows rise.
“You may accept,” I add, allowing a little coolness to seep into my voice, “that I am feeling an analog to embarrassment about being splayed out on the floor, giving birth to replacement servos.”
“Oh, sure,” he says sheepishly, starting to retreat.
The raccoon bot chooses that moment to throw itself against the bottom of the lid, bouncing me up. Its head peeks out for a second before I bat it back in with a motion too fast for the human eye to follow. I have the lid back down before Wrik pops his head back in. “You’re sure you’re all right?”
“Do you ask embarrassing questions of human females when their bodies make internal noises!”
He raises a placating hand. “Say no more.” The door closes with a satisfying click.
I whip open the lid, drag out the raccoon-dog and satisfy myself by quickly dismantling my antagonist. The machine is a crude device compared to the HCRs. She has obviously manufactured it recently, as an intruder unit. The small charge it carried could destroy a soft target, but I judge its purpose to have been reconnaissance.
So I have parried Lilith, but have nothing else to show at the moment for the encounter. On second thought, perhaps there is something to be gained. The raccoon dog is made of high quality metals, superior to anything in the scrapyard. It looks like I can make that fifth servo now.
Hours later, I emerge from Hanger II with all the servos and the spare made from the raccoon-dog. Wrik and Delt are delighted with the replacements and set about reinstalling them. I leave them to this, which they do not seem to find odd. This allows me to extend and refine my search of the area for any other agents of my enemy. My quantum brain continues to maintain my fortress in the virtualverse. Lilith has made no attempts to penetrate Retief’s network. The best she could manage, it seems, was the raccoon dog with its mere radio signal.
She thus remains blind to my actions beyond what little data she obtained from this scout before I destroyed it. Lilith is doubtless afraid to commit her forces to a strike without greater intelligence on my situation. Beyond me, she must worry about the Confederation forces onworld and any reinforcements that Deveraux could have sent. Every day she spends here increases the danger that I, or my forces, will locate her. Oh, yes, Lilith is beset by fears and doubts.
Chapter 25
Over the next two days, I examine all the data I scoured out of Lilith’s raccoon dog before I reprocessed it. Buried in the data, are fragments of information. The effects and distortions of a planet’s magnetic field leave telltales in the way electronic data arrays itself in a database and even in the metal the raccoon-dog was made of. It takes an epic two days of all my spare processing power before the program runs to its conclusion. This is the longest program I have ever run, attempting to analyze something as vast and variable as a planet. No other program I have run has taken more than a thousandth of this time.
I combine this information with the data I have on the transmitter in the raccoon dog. This allow me to narrow Lilith’s location to a 1,000 square kilometer area south of Eldra’s coastline home, and running toward the spaceport base. These are badlands, broken coastlines and islands far from where she originally landed her ship. But, as she is blind to my movements through the virtualverse, and Retief’s net, so am I to her movements. Unless she is visually observed, our combined hacking of the net makes any search result meaningless. We are both constantly sending spoofs and false information at each other and blinding such miserable an
d inadequate systems as this world possesses.
I place a call to Colonel Kurocal. She reaches the communicator with pleasing alacrity.
“I was hoping to hear from you,” she says.
“As I am sure you are aware I am monitoring your channel every second, all you need do is speak my name.”
“I assumed you would call me if there was a development.”
“There has been, but first how go the information suppression efforts on the raid?”
“Well,” she says. “Neither side wants to bring this into the light, but there were a lot of deaths, too many to keep the lid on, even though some of them were undocumented rebels who were never in any database. Even so, they had families. People are asking questions. How much longer do you need me to keep the lid on?”
“I have no time estimate for you, but it will be only a matter of days I believe. The powers on this world all know, or suspect, what has occurred, or a version of it as I had to leave Greg Nazir alive. Still, his edited version serves my purposes, isolating Lilith from any onworld support.”
“And you have a lead on her or you wouldn’t have called me,” Kurocal says.
“Yes. Lilith cannot move in the nets of Retief without drawing a cyberstrike from me that would severely damage, if not destroy her. She sent an autonomous robot with a radio link to spy on us. I destroyed it, but intel I gleaned from it gives me an approximate location for her.” I relay the coordinates.
“For a fancy computer everyone is so impressed with, that’s a pretty big approximation.”
“No one is perfect,” I reply.
Kurocal stares at me for a second before breaking into laughter. “Point for you.”
“Thank you. I have considered your protection efforts on the priority targets that I asked you to secure. I can find nothing to improve on your arrangements. But we must go over to offense now.”
“Quickly is best,” Kurocal answers, “there are too many reporters working too hard on this thing.”
All the Difference Page 23
