V: The Crivit Experiment

by Allen Wold

  The three were a team and got results very quickly. Paul could understand signals, knew information theory, and had a knack for distinguishing garbage from useful data. Bill, taking Paul's suggestions, figured out ways to implement them, while Shirley, who wrote assembly language in her sleep, worked up the programs to do what Bill suggested to achieve what Paul wanted.

  But it was not a trivial problem. They were more than satisfied when, after four hours, they knew which of the signals were just fluctuations in power lines, which were telephone lines, both internal and external, and which were other signals including the Visitors' many computers.

  It was the phone lines that Bill and Shirley were most interested in. Their plan was to separate the external calls from the in-house numbers, and convert the analogue signals into sounds so they could eavesdrop on anything any Visitor said to anybody else, either at their headquarters or elsewhere. But Paul kept looking at the filtered-out power signals.

  "They aren't using a steady draw," Paul said, interrupting the other two in the midst of an argument. "And if what you've done to separate the lines has any meaning, then I think we can do something with that."

  "Like what?" Bill wanted to know.

  "Like figuring out not only how much power they use, but by comparing different lines and doing a separation analysis, what power is being used in what part of the building."

  "So, lights?" Bill said. "Air conditioning? What difference does it make?"

  "Those are constant. But look." He pointed at a large monitor which combined several power signals into one display, each with a different color. "If we take out those constants, what we have left can only be special equipment. If we can tell when they're using the kitchen, the upstairs offices, and so on, we can discount those too, and know when they're using sound detectors or anything else that draws only on demand. Some things won't make any sense one way or another, but they've got some equipment in there and if we can find out what's where, by eavesdropping on their in-house orders and so on, we could learn a lot about what they're doing."

  "I've gotcha," Bill said. "They've got a conversion machine in there, and we could sort of peek in on them when they use it. But first we'd have to know where it is, and that means the phone lines have to be figured out."

  "So let's do it," Shirley said. "Once we've got those separated, you can hear them in person."

  "Well," Paul hesitated, "nearly."

  "Bullshit," Shirley said, "I'll reconstruct their voices exactly. All we need is a good speaker system, and I'll get the stockroom to supply us with one tomorrow. But we've got twelve outgoing lines, and God knows how many internal ones. Let's get on it."

  Those who would throw off the yoke of oppression know no time clocks. It was in the not so small hours of the next morning that Paul Freedman, Bill Gray, and Shirley Patchek finally quit. In that time they had managed to identify seventeen major internal power lines at the Visitor headquarters, eleven computer complexes, and sixteen intercom systems, apart from the twelve outside phone lines.

  Shirley had not waited to get speaker systems for the voice communications, but had gone up to supply on B-3 and purloined what she had needed. While they had worked on other problems, they had eavesdropped on several conversations, most of them meaningless, and recorded every one for later analysis. Under Paul's supervision, and with Bill's somewhat erratic insight, Shirley had written assembly code on the spot, transforming complex signals into comprehensible dialogue. Comprehensible, at least, in the sense that what came out of the speakers were words. What the words meant or might imply was something else.

  But that was for Mark and Anne to worry about. Shirley's main concern was to figure out the computer signals. With eleven different computers at the Visitor headquarters, each in communication with the others and some of them connected to the outside lines, there was a lot of data to sort through just in determining which signal originated with which computer, let alone what those signals meant.

  And that, of course, was what they were really after. When she could no longer think in assembly language, Shirley decided to call it a day—or a morning, rather. The three left their secret lab, with the satisfaction of knowing that they at last had an inside line to the Visitors' activities.

  Peter Frye met Benny Mounds and Edna Knight on the steps of Hanes Hall, across the quad from the Visitor office in the Courtland Building. It was nearly lunchtime, and hundreds of students were walking from classes back to dorms or up to Franklin Street.

  "Where's Greta and Dave?" Peter asked his friends.

  "Haven't seen Dave," Edna said. "Greta's doing her laundry. She'll be here as soon as she can."

  "Great, just great," Peter said. "We're trying to get these damned lizards off our backs, and Greta's got to do laundry. Maybe I should go home and shine my shoes."

  "Come on, Peter," Benny said. "We can tell her about it later."

  "You can bet that Mike Donovan and Julie Parrish didn't postpone any planning sessions to do laundry," Peter returned. He knew he was sounding foolish, but Greta's absence made it all too clear that he didn't have the kind of control over his fellows that he would have liked.

  "I suppose we could just sit here and wait," Edna said sarcastically. "And I don't see why we can't talk in our rooms or down in the student union."

  "Because it's not safe," Benny said. "The lizards have bugs planted in some of the rooms, and I know they've got cameras at the union."

  "They can't have bugs in all the dorm rooms," Edna protested.

  "Maybe not, but do you want to take the chance? Out here in the open is the best place to talk."

  "So let's talk, then. What are we going to do?"

  "We can start," Peter said, "by finding all the bugs we can and ripping them out."

  "Hell," Benny said, "I do that anyway, and the lizards just put them back."

  "Seems like it would be easier," Edna suggested, "if we could destroy their listening post instead."

  "I think you've got a good idea," Peter said. "That would put all their bugs out of commission at a single whack."

  "It would take them at least a couple days to fix it," Benny added.

  "More likely they'd bring in new equipment overnight," Peter went on. "But look, you know they've got to have a lot of records in there." He looked past Edna at the Courtland Building across the quad. A Visitor in red had just come out and was going up toward Cameron Avenue.

  "And destroyed records," Edna said, following his gaze, "can't be repaired or replaced."

  "At least not easily. I wonder how much damage we could do with a pair of wire cutters and a hammer."

  "Enough to neutralize the lizards for a couple of weeks at least," Edna said. "And I'll bet we could get other people to help us after we show them it can be done."

  "Now we're talking," Peter said happily. "Trashing the lizards' office will be just the first step. Once we get some people organized, we'll be able to make those lizards wish they'd never heard of Chapel Hill."

  "Question is," Edna said, "how are we going to get into the building?"

  "No problem," Benny told her. He held up his hands and wiggled his thick brown fingers at her. "My dad's a locksmith, and he taught me all he knows."

  "Terrific," Peter said. "And I think we ought to move quickly."

  "Like when?" Edna asked. "Tonight?"

  "Sure, why not? Get a few tools you can carry easily. We'll meet here at three."

  "In the morning?"

  "Unless you want to do it this afternoon. And when you see Greta, tell her laundry's no excuse this time."

  The ancient ditcher hooked up to the three-point hitch of the tractor strained and clanked as Durk Attweiler guided it along the fence line at the southeast corner of his farm. Heavy, sandy clay spewed erratically from the top end of the scoop chain into the wagon towed behind. It was four in the afternoon, and the wagon would be filled by the time he got to the road at the south, in another half hour or so, and he would quit then. Ditching was no
t his favorite activity, but if he didn't do it, his fields would be waterlogged in spring and fall, and he wouldn't be able to either plant or harvest his sparse crops.

  The next farm east, across the fence line, had long since been allowed to return to forest. The trees, mostly loblolly pine, were spindly and weak. Old man Thurston, without heirs, had just quit working the place when he'd turned seventy, and not even the state had wanted the property when he'd died two years ago at eighty-three.

  As he chugged along, Durk passed the end of the forest and could now see Thruston's weathered gray farmhouse up on the hill, just a half mile away. The soil was different there, and instead of pines, the one-time cornfield was spotted with cedar trees, none of them more than ten feet tall and most less than five.

  He heard a car down on the highway, but instead of going by, it turned up Thurston's drive. Durk could just barely see it as it passed behind the cedars, a big black car of a make he didn't recognize. It stopped at the house, and several people got out. The cedars were between him and them, so he couldn't see who they were, but as they went up onto the porch, he saw a flash of red just before they went into the house. A moment later somebody came out and drove the car around to the far side of the house and out of sight.

  Who would want to buy that farm? he wondered as he struggled to keep the ditcher on course. If there was any farm in Churchill County that was poorer than Durk's it was the Thurston place. Where there wasn't clay, there was quartz rock, and where there wasn't quartz, there was nearly sterile sand. The only reason Thurston had been able to keep the place going was because his grandfather had found gold in the quartz a century ago, and though the gold had run out quickly, the elder Thurston had left just enough money to make ends meet.

  At last Durk reached the ditch that ran along beside the highway. That was somebody else's worry, not his. He disengaged the ditching mechanism and raised the lower end of the scoop chain clear of the ground. It would be five by the time he got back to the house, and he was ready for a hot shower and a cold beer.

  He sat for a moment on his tractor, letting the engine idle, looking back over his shoulder at Thurston's house. Maybe the people who had bought the place were looking to do some tree farming instead of planting crops. He thought he might walk up to the place, say hello, introduce himself, find out who they were and what they were up to.

  But just as he reached down to turn off the tractor's engine, a movement in the sky up to the north and east caught his eye. It was an alien skyfighter, heading right this way. They passed over every now and then, going south from the Research Triangle Park to someplace toward Fayetteville, but usually their route was farther east. This skyfighter was heading right toward him. For a panicky moment he wished he had his shotgun.

  He sat and watched as the craft grew nearer and then descended to land behind the Thurston house. He remembered the flash of red he'd seen when the people in the car had gone up onto the porch. Damned if he wasn't going to have a bunch of lizards for neighbors. It would not, of course, be a good idea to go calling on them.

  But, he wondered, what the hell would Visitors be doing in a run-down place like this?

  It was Durk's usual practice to dump his ditch dirt into the Saksapaw River, which formed the western boundary of his farm. The river was fairly deep and swift, and his little dirt didn't hurt it any, though most everybody else used a landfill a couple of miles east of his place. Today, he thought, maybe he'd do it that way, though it would take him an hour or so longer to finish the job. It would also take him right by the Thurston house, which was only a couple hundred feet from the road. He wanted to get a closer look at that skyfighter.

  He got off his tractor, disconnected the ditcher, and hitched the wagon in its place. He couldn't get onto the highway here because the road ditch was too deep, but there was a crossing a little ways away where he'd laid tile just so he could get out if he wanted to—like now. He drove there, the heavily laden wagon leaving deep tire marks in the dry soil, crossed the ditch to the other side of the highway, then started toward the landfill.

  Normally he hated to move so slowly on a road. There was no shoulder here, and the one or two cars that came up behind him had to pass by swinging way out into the other lane. But this time he didn't push it. Indeed, he kept the tractor at a creeping ten miles an hour. It took him awhile to come abreast of the Thurston house, but it also gave him plenty of time to see who and what was up there.

  There were at least half a dozen Visitors moving around, going from the house to their big car and back, carrying boxes and things. The skyfighter was parked at the far side, between the house and a barn, and other Visitors were unloading it. He couldn't tell what any of the stuff was. He watched the house and his new neighbors with open curiosity as he drove slowly past, noticed that the windows were all opaqued somehow, and that something was being done to the inside of both the near and far barns without changing their external appearance.

  Two of the Visitors were standing at the front end of the skyfighter, talking to each other and directing the work of the others. When they turned around to watch him drive past, it was all he could do to return their stare, and then turn slowly away. They were two of the lizards who had come into the Five Star last night, the tall black man and the Chinese woman. He didn't know whether they recognized him or not, but the thought that they might sent shivers up his spine.

  He kept his eyes rigidly on the road after that. He had an urge to dump the dirt and then come back another way so as not to pass in front of the house again, but if the lizards were watching him, that would be suspicious. As it was, he had every reason to be going where he was going. And coming back with an empty wagon, he would be able to crank the tractor up to twenty. The less time he spent under their observation, the better.

  "This place is going to work out just fine," Leon told Chang as they walked past the skyfighter toward the barns at the back of the house. "Plenty of room, the structures are sound, and Freda tells me the sandy area north of here is large enough for ten or more animals in a nearly natural state."

  "How's the one doing that you brought with you?" Chang asked. They entered one of the barns, which was being converted into a shop and garage.

  "Just fine. A really superb specimen." They looked around at the work being done.

  The walls of the barn had been lined with a plasticlike sheathing, onto which shelves were being fitted. Workbenches lined the back wall, and a heavy-duty rack was being installed to one side. In the middle of the floor were two strange vehicles. Each had an open cab at one end with two seats, but the rest was just a flat bed, supported on three-foot-tall balloon tires, like those used on a dune buggy, only larger.

  "We'll be making cages in here," Leon said. "Won't need many big ones, of course, but the smaller animals can't be let loose, so we'll be keeping them in the other barn beside the house."

  "About how many are you planning to have?" Chang asked.

  "A hundred breeding pairs. Let's go take a look."

  They left the garage and shop and walked up the other side of the skyfighter to the larger barn. It too had been sheathed, and several workers were installing racks from which the cages would be suspended along three walls and in a double row up the middle. A prototype cage was standing on the floor. It was two feet high, four feet wide, and eight feet deep, with a movable divider down the middle. The bottom was suspended over a clean-out tray, and there were food and water dispensers at the sides.

  "The females will all go into the right side," Leon explained, "and we'll provide nesting material, of course. The divider keeps the male away from the female and pups during the first few days after birth."

  "When do you expect your stock?" Chang asked.

  "Tomorrow morning. We'll also be bringing some animals up from Camp T-3 then too. We could have brought them up today—they have plenty down there—but Freda wanted to make sure the grounds were secure."

  They looked around a moment longer, and then went int
o the house.

  Most of the Visitors there were workers and, like those in the shop and breeding barn, would depart when their week-long jobs were done, late that night or early the next day. But three would be staying on with Leon, as his staff. These three—Vivian, a white woman; Edmond, who looked like a Chicano; and Gerald, a white man—were directing the workers in their unloading and arranging of furniture and equipment.

  Here too the entire inner surface had been refinished with the plasticlike sheathing, only, in this case, it was surfaced to look more like an office or residence instead of being left raw as in the shop and barn. The major portion of the first floor was being converted into a series of labs. The living room held surgical tables—two small ones and one large one—with all the adjunct equipment against the walls. The parlor held cages like those in the barn, but more compact, more elaborate, and with electronic equipment stacked around them. What had been the dining room now contained the top of a cage which extended through the floor and the crawl space below into a sand-filled pit. Only the kitchen retained its original function, although it was modified now to accommodate the Visitors' special culinary requirements.

  After this brief tour, Leon and Chang went upstairs. The master bedroom had been converted to an office, where Darin was now supervising the installation of communications equipment and computers. The rest of the second floor had been modified into five small bedrooms for Leon and his staff.

  "Not exactly spacious," Chang commented.

  "They'll serve," Leon said. "We're going to be pretty busy once the animals get here, and there's plenty of room outside if people want some recreation."

  "As long as they stay clear of the sand pits," Chang commented dryly.

  They were about to depart when Freda came up the stairs, carrying what looked like an oversized leather folder.

  "I've got the survey here," she told Leon. "Want to look at it?"

  "Sure." He made space on one of the desks in the office, where Freda put down her folder and opened it. The inner faces were a translucent white, with a row of icons printed down one side. She touched one of these and a digitized aerial photo of the farm filled one half of the folder.