The Scavenger Door

by Suzanne Palmer

  “Oh?” Fergus said. “Some narrowing would be great.”

  “We—”

  “Oh, no, no, Whiro, you did all the work, not we so much, no,” Ignatio interrupted. “Maybe I did a little, yes, some guidance? Guidance is important. Okay, then yes, you can say we.”

  There was a noticeable pause before Whiro spoke again. “We believe your guess of three major parties working separately is correct, though we cannot fully account for what appears to be either occasional cooperation or data compromises between groups, nor confidently predict the existence—or lack thereof—of reciprocal awareness between them. We will reevaluate this after the results of your ‘honeypot’ exercise become apparent, but we have a moderately confident guess that your white-van people are your data scrubbers.”

  “That level of reach and thoroughness means they’re professionals,” Fergus said. “There can’t be that many companies who could pull that off.”

  “Not hundreds, but at least several dozen,” Whiro said.

  Fergus settled back on the couch, eyeing the Earth still slowly rotating over the table, and trying to avoid the stink-eye he was getting from Isla. “What else you got?” he asked.

  “Cross-correlation of all the elements shows several distinct patterns, which we have divided into four categories: sites of high interest where that interest ended abruptly, sites that remain of high interest to all identifiable parties, sites where at least one party has visibly ceased interest while at least one continues, and sites where there is either no reported activity or insufficient information to conclude what category it should belong to,” Whiro said. “We postulate that in the first case, either it was fully determined beyond doubt that no active fragment was present, or any and all active fragments were recovered. None of those sites would be worthwhile for us to search. I will now color-code the dots to indicate those states: red for highly competitive, yellow for partially competitive, green for not competitive, and blue for unknown.”

  To Fergus’s utter lack of surprise, all the debris trajectories that came down over ocean turned blue. Two white dots remained, one in Scotland, the other in Western Australia. Mine, he thought, with some pride.

  “Until the point in time where all relevant data was scrubbed, the only obvious interest is either local governmental or the Alliance Terrestrial Science Unit, and not especially resourced,” Whiro said. “Within a matter of days after the beginning of the data scrub, we see much greater attention from the ATSU, and also movement from the white-van party that suggests they had full access to the original information.”

  “If the first fragments they found were like the first one I found—inert, no changing mass, just part of the frame or whatever—then they would have been a curiosity at best, with the patterning and unknown alloy. Soon as you find one that was part of the core, though, you can’t miss the trick with the changing mass. That is enough to get a lot of scientists and professionally paranoid people interested and much more jealous of their data.”

  “That was also our conclusion,” Whiro said. “It is notable that, to the best we can determine, there are sites that are still being monitored by the Alliance but where white-van activity has ceased, and none the other way around, which suggests that while the white-van people have or had access to all the Alliance data, the reverse is likely not true.”

  “A leak, then, or a plant in the Alliance,” Fergus said.

  “That seems probable,” Whiro confirmed.

  “How many sites where both of them have stopped looking?”

  “Eleven.” There were eleven green dots on the screen.

  “And how many sites where only the white-van people have quit?”

  “Seven.”

  “Show me?”

  Seven of the yellow dots grew larger. “So, we can guess that the white-van people have either found those pieces or ruled them out,” Fergus said.

  “That is also our supposition,” Whiro said.

  “And our fire cult?”

  “Observed interest from Fajro Promeso was the last to start and seems less coordinated or sustained. It is harder to identify sites they’ve stopped looking at that the other competitors have not, but we think there are three.”

  “From my brief encounter with one of their members, they seem to figure out where the others are looking by following them or at least following the white-van people. If—” Fergus started, then noticed the lone purple dot squarely in the center of the Alaska Federation. “Whiro, what’s this one?”

  “There is data establishing conclusively that a live fragment was found by a Mr. Brydan Silver, who took his vast curiosity about it to SolNet. The same day when his many posts were scrubbed, he was murdered in his home in what authorities determined was a break-in gone wrong.”

  Isla, who had been rummaging through cabinets with more banging than necessary, stopped. “Murdered?” she asked. “Poor bloke. Who did it?”

  “I can provide the crime reports. It looks like a professional execution with a few extra things knocked over to provide an excuse to flag it otherwise,” Whiro said. “Not something that seems in the range of competence of your cultists.”

  “Fergus, is Gavin in danger?” Isla asked. She had gone pale. “If they think there’s a piece in the apartment above the bar . . .”

  “They know I left, and Kyle got a good look at me when I went out and bothered his van,” Fergus said.

  “And you and Gavin don’t look like bleeding twins? You don’t think he could get mistaken for you?” Isla asked more sharply.

  “You’re mad at me for getting you out of danger in Australia, and now you’re also mad at me that Gavin just might, maybe, be in danger? What do you want from me?” Fergus replied, frustrated.

  “I want ye to use yer head!” Isla shouted. “And yer heart, if ye have one!” She slammed her mug down on the table and stormed out of the room.

  Fergus stared after her, then with a sigh picked her mug up and put it in the autowash. “That went well,” he said.

  “For the contrary—” Ignatio started, but at Fergus’s look, ey fell silent, and Fergus went to the cupboards and slammed around for a bit until he found a Meatly Pie, pulled the tab on it, and sat, grumbling, while he waited for it to heat.

  “Whiro, do you have anything you can use to keep an eye on my cousin’s bar, to alert him and us to any brewing trouble?” Fergus asked when he felt he could speak calmly again.

  “I can dispatch an autonomous security bot, but the communication lag will be problematic if I leave Earth orbit,” Whiro said.

  “For now, do that?” Fergus asked. “Unless you have better ideas.”

  “I will consider. In the meantime, I have finished scanning the new fragment using a multi-planar scale,” Whiro said. “Would you like to see the data?”

  “Will I understand it?” Fergus asked. “Since apparently, I’m the idiot in the room.”

  “I would like them, yes,” Ignatio said. Eir handpad beeped and ey read quietly as Fergus ate, all four eyes focused on eir screen.

  “It is a strangeness of coincidence,” Ignatio said at last, “but the model of the changing mass of the new fragment matches the profile of the first fragment exactly, even though they did not appear identical to my many eyes.”

  “How close a match?” Fergus asked.

  “Whiro calculated it to the tenth decimal,” Ignatio said. “Do you feel this is insufficient? We can run it again!”

  “No, no, ten is pretty exact,” Fergus said. “But you think it is a coincidence?”

  “Only I am cautious not to assume otherwise, yes?” Ignatio said.

  “What does that mean? If it’s not a coincidence?”

  “I have seen many door-doorkeys whole,” Ignatio said. “They are—”

  “Wait, what?” Fergus asked. “What do you mean, ‘many’? You mean we might have to go t
hrough this all over again?”

  “No, not so,” Ignatio said. “Most are nice. Doors to pretty flowers, flying happy things, vast oceans of glass trees, all secret you can’t know about, so shhh. Just you have the bad one, the scavenger door, and maybe once up in a time, it was somewhere nice too. Before the swarms came.”

  “Have you ever gone through one of those doors?” Fergus asked. “Or lots of them? What does—”

  “Ah!” Ignatio shouted. “Is a secret! Vorget—forget—I told you, I did not tell you. Pay attention to this one only.”

  “But you were comparing—”

  Ignatio began whistling, and Fergus realized ey were trying to suck air in and out, in sequence, to calm emself. “Never mind,” he said, keeping his voice as calm as he could, worried about his friend. “I forget. Just tell me what you need to tell me.”

  Ignatio sat on the floor and wrapped all eir legs around emself until the whistling subsided. “They are closely alike in their meaningful core,” Ignatio said at last, “and more variable in the inert frames that hold one edge in place for us. If we extrapolate from our two pieces and my shape memories, and if all pieces are an equal portion and not just a coincidence of these two, we can guess the pattern.”

  “And we can make an estimate of how many core pieces there are,” Whiro added.

  “How many?” Fergus asked.

  “Thirty-two,” Whiro said. “Maybe one less, maybe one more, but that it is the most probable calculation.”

  “I would like thirty-two, because it is a power of two, but there are 127 debris traces, which is not,” Ignatio said. “It is a sadness, as twos are lucky.”

  “It’s only one off,” Fergus said.

  “It is still off,” Ignatio said. “So, it may be we are wrong thinking.”

  “Maybe two sets of debris came down close enough together to appear as one set to the detection systems?”

  “For complicated multidimensional physics reasonings, I am confident that the core pieces would initially repel each other as they entered our space, like magnets pointed badly at one another, and they would scatter the frame pieces as they separated,” Ignatio said. Ey blinked eir outer sets of eyes at him. “Would you like to talk the math?”

  “I’m sorry,” Fergus said. “Probably Isla—”

  “I am already having that conversation,” Whiro said. “Ms. Ferguson is more receptive to complex theoretical discussions than you are, and it has made a positive change in topic from your manifest, multitudinous failings as a sibling.”

  “Wonderful,” Fergus said. “If there are thirty-two pieces, subtracting my two, the murder victim’s, and the sites where it seems likely one of our competitors has already found the prize, can you identify the best site for me to search next?”

  “Japan,” Whiro said, and the globe display zoomed in on a spot near the center of the main island.

  “Okay,” Fergus said. “I guess that’s where I go.”

  “First, there is another matter for discussion,” Whiro said. “As you are no doubt aware, one of our rivals is a multisystem military space authority that, among other things, closely monitors traffic in and around Earth. It will not take long for them to correlate your activities groundside with your trips in and out of orbit bringing fragments up. Nor, I assume, would they miss us making frequent trips between Earth and Mars when we go to deliver the pieces we’ve retrieved. If there is a leak in the Alliance, that also opens us up to enemy activity from the data scrubbers.”

  “Yeah, I know, I need a better way of moving the fragments without drawing attention,” Fergus said. “I just haven’t thought of one yet, and it’s not like I can keep the fragments on me while I’m running around down on Earth.”

  “It is a matter that has been partially solved for you,” Whiro said. “Before you go downwell on your Japan quest, you have an appointment on the orbital station.”

  “With who?”

  “It has been arranged by Ms. Harcourt, who informs us she has taken care of the Earth-to-Mars transport issue,” Whiro said. “Other than that, I do not have specifics.”

  “Fine. When am I supposed to be over there?” Fergus asked.

  “In three hours and seventeen minutes,” Whiro said.

  “Okay. Let’s see what Arelyn’s got,” Fergus said. He stood up. “That even gives me enough time to catch a short nap first.”

  Given that Arelyn Harcourt had built an entire illicit distribution system in hostile territory under the watchful eye of the Mars Colonial Authority in a matter of months, as her first foray into business, it was probably something solid. It stung a bit to admit it, but of course she would be several steps ahead of him when it came to logistics.

  “Shall I let Ms. Ferguson know the anticipated departure time?” Whiro said. “She will likely also wish to pack.”

  “No, don’t bother her,” Fergus said. “I’ll come back for her after my meeting at the orbital, and maybe by then, she’ll be less mad at me and we can make a plan.”

  “That sounds logical,” Whiro said. “I will wake you when the interdock passenger transport is approaching.”

  “Great,” Fergus said. He went back to his cabin, feeling bad for lying to his friends. Isla wanted Gavin safe, of course, but he wanted her safe, too. He had already decided he was heading straight down to the surface after this meet-up, alone.

  Sometimes, he thought, it’s good to know exactly where on the asshole scale you belong.

  * * *

  —

  Fergus caught the interdock transport from Whiro to Kelly Station. There were two private stations beyond it, visible only as pinpricks of light by the naked eye, hardly differentiated from the various blinks, flashes, and slow arcs of traffic around them. One was a military facility built by the former United States, abandoned not long after construction as the country had finally come apart at the seams, that had eventually been resurrected by an ascendant Europe and was currently used as a scientific research base. The other was an Alliance station that served mostly as neutral ground between various, intermittently contentious terrestrial governments, and he found himself needing to locate that one, for his own peace of mind, from the window of the transport, as if he didn’t fix it down in his mind, it could somehow sneak up and ambush him.

  There’s comfort in occasionally letting your superstitions get their way, he thought. Especially when you already know they’re ridiculous.

  The station had a small but good commercial concourse, with a hotel, a 3-D movie theater, and plenty of food and shopping. Most of the higher-priced, useless tourist stuff was sold closer to the shuttle terminals, but there were enough people living semi-permanently on the station or on their personal ships to keep a real market in business. There was also a small automated sandwich shop named the Deli Gute Esn, and he took a stool at the counter and ordered a Reuben and a root beer to wait for his mysterious contact.

  “Nice hair color,” someone said. A thin kid, with freshly buzzed black hair and a familiar smile, set a small box down on the floor and took the seat next to him. “Is that a disguise, or are you trying to move up in the world?”

  “Hello, Polo,” Fergus said. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  The Free Marsie smiled, a twinkle in his brown eyes, and pointed to the shoulder of his blue uniform jacket. “I am a new assistant driver for the Mars-Earth bus,” he said. “I am a productive member of society now. I even got a haircut. My father would be so proud to see.”

  There was something in that last sentence that they both found sharp, for their own reasons, and each of their smiles faltered with it. “My father did not live to travel to Mars or see me born there,” Polo said, by way of explanation. “We left much behind in Tibet, to find things not much different.”

  “Less snow,” Fergus said.

  “Yes, less snow,” Polo agreed. The automated waitsystem deposite
d Fergus’s sandwich and drink in front of him, and at Polo’s inquiring look, Fergus nodded.

  Polo took half the sandwich. “Oh!” he said, after swallowing his first bite. “Ms. Arelyn has sent you a present.” He stretched down and picked up the box before setting it on the counter.

  Fergus opened it and pulled out a purple-and-red PhobosCola can. It was heavy but not in a way that suggested liquid inside. “Hang on,” Polo said, and took it back out of his hand. He twisted the top and the entire rim came free, and he handed the can back to Fergus.

  Inside was a wad of fiber batting. Fergus tugged it gently out and peered inside. The can was lined, about a centimeter thick, with hand-soldered wiring and tiny components embedded in hastily applied resin. There was a tiny switch just inside, below where the rim fit, and he pressed it.

  As near as he could tell, with all his senses, nothing happened. So, carefully, he stuck a finger down into the cavity, then immediately pulled it back, barely managing to avoid yelping in surprise at the very strange sensation of his finger becoming invisible to his extra sense he had come to take for granted. Polo finished off his half of sandwich, then pointed toward the can. “Arelyn says it’s for signal camouflage.”

  “Yep,” Fergus said. “This will do nicely.” He fished in his pocket for the Burringurrah fragment, wrapped it in the batting, and stuffed it inside. Polo handed him the lid, and Fergus screwed it back on. The seam was still nearly invisible, even now that he knew it was there, and he could no longer hear the fragment’s constant, quiet chatter.

  “She said if it works, they can send up a few more,” Polo said.

  “That would be great, and please tell her thanks,” Fergus said. Taking a deep breath, he handed the can to Polo. “Be careful with this. If the wrong people find out you have it, it could get you killed.”

  “Got it,” Polo said. He tucked the can in his pocket. “I’ve got to get back onboard for the return run to Mars. Six hours each way in skip right now, and getting longer. Stupid moving planets. You going to drink that?” He pointed at Fergus’s untouched root beer, and Fergus slid it his way.