Bypass Gemini
Page 6
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Back in the skies over Golana, an aging but well-kept ship, military in design, was maneuvering to dock with a communications pylon. In an earlier age, it might have been called a satellite, and in truth that’s all it was, but when things become commonplace, people found the need to come up with more specific names. Just as cars came to be called coupes and convertibles and roadsters and hatchbacks depending on their shape, satellites earned descriptions like pylon or wheel or hub. Com-pylons had taken the place of cell towers once humanity had developed the need to stay connected on a globe-to-globe scale. Handheld or vehicle-mounted devices communicated to a pylon. From there, small bundles of quantum-entangled particles would, with a little super-scientific prodding, transmit data via their matched pairs over virtually any distance instantaneously. Pylons scattered along all mapped transit routes meant that any slidepad in mapped space could communicate with any other one, given enough hops.
The quantum communication, aside from thumbing its nose at relativistic physics by transmitting information faster than the speed of light, was subject to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Physicists liked to define this with fancy equations that featured letters from three different alphabets, but to the layman it meant that it was impossible to observe the data without altering it, thus making the communication absolutely secure as long as the connection was direct. Any wireless steps or repeater relays spoiled the effect by at least briefly requiring it to be decoded to a less secure form. Thus, if someone was the sort who required utter secrecy, they needed to dock directly, and very few had access. This man was among them.
Fingers tapped out a long sequence of digits on an access screen, then swiped their prints for authentication. A screen read off a list of connection steps. A moment later, a voice crackled across the com speaker in the ship.
“William Trent,” said the voice, a terse introduction that managed to communicate with remarkable clarity how much of a waste of time he considered the call to be.
“Agent Fisk reporting. I found the leak,” said the mysterious ship’s pilot.
“About time,” Trent barked.
“There’s a problem,” warned Fisk.
“What is it?” fumed Trent, murder in his tone.
“It may not have been contained. I did a trace on network activity. She did some research. Freelancers.”
Fisk spoke in short, precise bursts, like machinegun fire. He delivered exactly what information needed to be delivered with the sort of efficiency only found in soldiers and butlers.
“Damn it!” Trent replied.
“Narrowed it down to one. Found surveillance of a hand-off. Package contents unknown. It looks like he is off-planet already.”
“Find him. Get it back. This doesn’t get any further. Not now.”
“What about her?”
“If she sprung one leak, she can spring another. We can’t have that. Take care of it.”
“What level of authorization do I have in this matter?”
“Take. Care. Of. It.”
“Acknowledged.”
The communication was severed. Fisk pulled away from the pylon and pulled up his surveillance notes. His primary target had a short trip to a neighboring star system planned that day on a commuter shuttle. That would be simple enough. Some collateral damage, but no trail to follow. As for his new secondary target, the freelancer . . . that might require a more personal approach.