The Radical Factor (Stone Blade Book 3)

by James Matt Cox

  Try as he might, Micah found no pattern either.

  "We've tried everything, Micah," said Sarah Meitz, one of the local burners, "Nothing makes any sense."

  "Slib. Let's pretend Charlie just cracked this." He cleared the terminal of all previous correlates and hypotheses and reset the raw data. "I know you've done it already but correlate this against the local calendar."

  Meitz did so and the data fit. Then she did something and some of the transactions turned red.

  "These are conflicts against known celebrations, rituals, feasts and other holy days," explained Ferrel, "According to all the cultural intel we have plus Vera's reads on the crowds these transactions cannot have happened. You yourself saw how seriously these people take Dhu's time. Either Charraud is the biggest sinner on Allhai Mik, who has never been caught, or they're not right. Even if they are the amount of activity implies a similar number of other sinners to do business with. That is very low sigma and that means code."

  "Have you tried LINC standard time?"

  "Six-sigma." Ferrel twiddled his terminal. "Using both local adjusted and absolute there are still conflicts."

  Micah examined the data again. Some of the plain entries turned yellow and some of the red ones, orange.

  "I've also tried AI heuristics against local calendar, LINC adjusted and LINC absolute. No pattern."

  Micah deleted Ferrel's last action and called up the local calendar as the local folk used it.

  "Tried that," said Ferrel, "Yes, there is some diagonalization but not enough for a good analytic or even a boundary metric. It's predictable but empty. Burnit!"

  "We have data on the surrounding groups and planets. Do any of the dates correlate there?"

  "No, my brother. At least not enough so to make the archives. It might be something like ship arrivals or LINC deals. If that's the case then we have squelch."

  "But..." prompted Micah at what Ferrel didn't say.

  "But if it's something of local significance that lots of people would know, why bother hiding it behind such powerful encryption. No one on that planet would violate Dhu Lan by stealing it and even if they did, why bother hiding it so hard? If we didn't have advanced equipment and expertise working on this I'd still be chewing on it after I retired! The average tech on Allhai Mik would take forever for even low-grade crypto."

  "Is there a sect of Dhu's Burners of Potentially Sinful Data?"

  "Not on any record I've ever seen," said Meitz, "and I've seen more than a few. I ran correlates against all known and inferred sects of Dhu. Nothing. Here's something else you might not know. Almost all Esavians and Esavian worlds eschew tech they cannot produce and maintain locally. Some of the most radical won't even use that. Believe or doubt, this is incredibly high technology even for Allhai Mik or Saddireb Libre, and I don't just mean the software. From what Charlie tells me the terminal itself was advanced well past the local levels."

  "No blather there," said Ferrel, "And before you ask we also tried vertical correlation, one-, two- and three-step skips, prime skips, Fibonacci skips, L-space curve correlation, hyperelliptical solution... even Vera tried. Squelch!"

  "Slib," said Micah, "I know this is your strong orbit, Charlie, but let's work backward from where you started. Do you still have the original data minus the crypto?"

  Ferrel called it up. "It's pretty scrambled and out of order. At first I thought it was just a consequence of the crypto they had on it, then I hypothesized otherwise. When nothing nice happened I factored in the original structure. Squelch. I even ran heuristics on the difference between the raw data and the current order. Nothing."

  "What about the metavirus? Have you done anything with it?"

  "We have. Good work in breaking it too, my brother. I'll make a burnmaster out of you yet. Interlocking defense in depth with an incredibly light AIdaptive attack engine interleaved between the layers. It took some work but we managed to invert it. Then we applied it to the raw data and then the structured data and even the original transfer, and got feces for all of them."

  Micah called up the calendar again. He saw the diagonalization Ferrel mentioned but something else gnawed at him. Regardless of what the data meant no Esavian would do business during any time dedicated to Dhu. That meant that even if Charraud himself didn't follow Dhu Lan - unlikely! - anyone with whom he interacted most certainly would. They would, with equal certainty, impose extreme and severe consequences on any violations.

  "This encryption is incredibly complex," said Micah, "So is that metavirus. So was Charraud's house net."

  "Truth to the point of pain," said Ferrel sarcastically, "But we'll be ready if we see it again! Don't forget we did invert it."

  "What is the timespan of the data? Order earliest to latest and opaque to frequency and dispersion."

  "Two years and five months," said Ferrel, "That doesn't fit any rational bookkeeping system plus there are no distinct boundary events on the transactions themselves."

  Micah stared at the data. "Did you try removing the conflicts?"

  "One of the first things. Then just the conflicts. Then the same under local adjusted and absolute times conflicts removed and just conflicts. Squelch."

  "Other data on the machine? What about those spools we found."

  "We tried date correlations with and without, metrics, heuristics, key-signature matching, key-sync encryption, simple cipher substitution, less-than-simple substitutions... Lots of stuff."

  Micah focused his attention on the local calendar, then the other two, then he let his mind wander a moment. Then another moment. Still nothing.

  "Thriftiness means Dhu Lan warns against wastefulness," said Micah, "Therefore this means something. The heavy-duty crypto says it means something important. Something that should not be discovered."

  "Truth," said Ferrel.

  "Pious question: something that should not be discovered by whom?"

  Ferrel twitched at that. Then he began thinking hard.

  "Something that should not be discovered by... someone who could discover it?"

  "Dead on the beam! The locals? Very low sigma. If Charraud did business on holy days he'd be executed. Or worse. Then again at a second offense and most certainly at a third, so absolutely not the locals."

  "But who besides the locals..." Ferrel slammed his fist on the table and grinned. "Torque me sideways! Us! Us or someone like us."

  "Plus-plus," said Micah, "Next question: why would someone like us be burning around that particular planet for someone like him?"

  "Because such hypothetical burners had something to look for. Bonusjack, my brother! Signor Charraud is a fadescale! He is very carefully blending into the environment on Allhai Mik."

  "He's an agent," said Meitz, "But an agent working for whom?"

  "An agent working for someone with an interest in Allhai Mik in particular," said Ferrel, "and possibly the Esavians in general. I'm calling up the analyses now. Micah, message Ted please."

  By the time Ionoski arrived they had all the data they and Chalo had concerning Alhai Mik displayed or ready for it.

  "Impressive," said Ionoski, "The inferences and conclusions all check. Doubly impressive since we should have realized it immediately but didn't."

  "We had other concerns," said Micah.

  "But it's both a simple and an obvious conclusion and simple solutions are best solutions."

  Truth! thought Micah.

  "But," continued Ionoski, "as simple and as obvious as it is, how exactly does it help us to break it?"

  Metiz' expression fell instantly.

  "Burn you Ted," said Ferrel but without any punch behind the words, "Why do you always poach my profit with the simplest of facts?"

  "Job requirement," shrugged Ionoski, "or hobby, you pick."

  Ferrel and Ionoski swapped a little more banter but Micah's thoughts sharpened. Something about simple solutions. Something with simple solutions and Ferrel's work inverting the metavirus. Not itself a simple task but the simplest solution t
o the problem it posed. Simple solutions versus the diagonality of the data and the conflicts where no conflict should exist. Something with simple solutions and not wasting effort...

  "Reverse the dates," said Micah, "Not the order, the dates themselves. Reverse the numbers."

  Ferrel did so and all the conflicts on the local calendar vanished!

  "The time range," said Micah, looking, "is now a year and a half. That's a more reasonable boundary."

  "There's also clustering," said Ferrel, "Sensibly random clustering, exactly as you'd expect from just about any business. Burn it all why didn't I see that?!"

  "Too many corners," said Micah, "Think back. How many layers of armor-plated crypto did you have to peel back to get the data. All of that plus an embedded metavirus that made your life just that much harder. How advanced was all of that?

  "Now assume the role of 'them.' Suppose you have data that absolutely must not be discovered. You have lots of complex guards and crypto to assure that plus a virus that will trash any system it hits, plus tariff. Worst-case: how can you best hide your data if all those complex precautions fail?"

  "With something frustratingly simple," grinned Ferrel, "Message Vera. Sarah, we have some actual work ahead of us. Disgusting!"

  By the time Kidwell arrived with Siffai and Barstein in tow Ferrel had significant correlations.

  "This man is a horrible merchant," said Meitz, "His purchases far outpace his sales."

  "Because they aren't purchases or sales," said Ferrel, "Ted, bring Vera, Katie and Dave up to orbit. Micah, just look. Don't power up your concluder yet, just see what we have."

  "This may be significant," said Meitz, "Sales of swine are always preceded by purchases of steak, riding animals, khav and iron or steel."

  "Isolate those," said Micah, "Now see if you can correlate those particular items with anything else. Then try pairs and other combinations."

  "Daksha tah'koos!" Siffai and Barstein both winced when Meitz uttered that. "Correlations. Tons of tight ones. Ran'damma sideways! Even more when we eliminate khav."

  Siffai's face wrinkled and she looked at Meitz reproachfully. Micah made note of the words against future need.

  "She's right, six-sigmas," said Ferrel, "Look at these transactions in linear order with all the others removed."

  He highlighted purchases in green and sales in red. No one had any problem seeing the positive time-correlation there!

  "Daksha tookuz on this one too," said Micah.

  Siffai scowled at him but forbore a reply when she saw what he indicated. All the others fell silent in short order.

  Charraud's most profitable sale of swine happened a few days before the bombing of the Peace Spire.

  "Assume relevance," said Micah, speaking as much to organize his thoughts as to inform the others, "These four items, with or without khav, all appear in the same order and only ever together. There are no isolated instances of any of them appearing elsewhere. That rules out coincidence.

  "Sarah. Try a time-correlation between these transactions, specifically swine sales, with incidents or incursions into Semid space."

  "They match," said Meitz after a lengthy query, "All but these two." She highlighted a pair. "Both of them report a very low profit on the sale. Coincidence?"

  "I don't think so. Hypothesis: 'swine' refers to Esavian activity against the Federation. Do a simple delay analysis between the date of the sale and the date of the incident."

  "Positive correlation," said Meitz, "Very positive within a one- to two-week window. The shortest delay was six days and the longest seventeen but those are outliers. All the rest fall within the interval."

  "It fits twice," said Barstein, now working his own terminal, "Low profits happened when we acted quickly or managed to circumvent a major incident. Higher profits happen when they succeeded. The more people they killed or property they damaged the greater the sale amount."

  "Try relevant regression against that," suggested Micah, "There should be a high correlation there too."

  "Near unity," said Meitz, "I would call it indistinguishable."

  "I concur," said Micah, "Dave, the Esavians have active terror cells outside their own space, yes?"

  "Too much so," replied Barstein, "Hence SIF7's current state of overwork."

  "Active terror cells require significant specialized supplies," said Micah, "Food and drink they can acquire as needed but weapons, explosives and other milspec gear has to come from elsewhere. Compromised cells also need replacement."

  "Possibly food as well," said Siffai, "If the Esavians are that fanatical they will want food they know is safe to eat, so that may be supplied also."

  Micah shoved around an idea. "Try this for a hat. 'Steak' is rations; food prepared so that the members of the cells know it's good to eat. 'Riding animals' refers to transportation: interstellar, interplanetary, maybe even hovers. 'Iron' and 'steel' are weapons, explosives, armor or other equipment they can't purchase legally without suspicion. 'Khav' we can try to cross-correlate, but even without it the rest makes sense.

  "What we have is the logistics for a supply chain to any terror cell outside Esavian space. We know from what we found on Zuvi Minor that the Esavians do have friends outside their own worlds. Whether these friends are covert Esavians or just people friendly to them or their cause is irrelevant. Supply points and caches exist and the Esavians know how to access them. Presumably these supply points are or can be connected to get what the terrorists need to where they are."

  "But we have intercepted supplies," said Siffai, "That is one of the major keys to finding the hidden cells!"

  "But we haven't found them all, dosha," said Barstein, "Supply-tracing is only one of the methods we used but until now we thought it the most reliable."

  "It is," said Micah, "As long as you trace the right chains."

  "As to other attacks," said Ionoski, "the Esavians have plenty of other enemies. Bet me ten standing that, given what we have here, we can't correlate something with some of those too. Think non-linear. We should be able to develop some analytic metrics with what we have here.

  "We also have the warehouse on Zuvi Minor. As soon as I send this upstream I'll wager another ten that Strategy and Planning puts at least one observation team on it and traces every box into or out from the place."

  "Tah'koos on pickles," said Barstein, "Ted, my friend, we must inform SIFComm of this."

  ***

  Movvi looked from Barstein to Ferrel to Ionoski and back.

  "You are certain of this?"

  Micah shrugged. "Of the data, absolutely. Of the interpretation, as certain as we can be. As we reported we have significant positive correlations just on this data. We have positive correlation near unity for the presence of the five items indicated and attacks against the Semid Federation. We also have positive correlation for the converse: the only place these items appear is prior to an attack and they absolutely do not appear elsewhere."

  Before them sat Movvi, three others who moved like Siffai and Barstein and Uri Saada, Chalo's senior SIFComm officer.

  "It is based on inference and hypothesis," added Ionoski, "We never said or implied otherwise. You cannot deny that it is very convincing, though. I'd stake money on it. Even if we factor out the assumed meaning there is forward correlation."

  "What about backward correlations," asked Saada.

  "This is one Esavian world out of how many," said Micah, "We located Charraud mostly due to carelessness on his part. Charlie picked his business because he had two hovertrucks and a solid garage for them. If he was not acting alone, and I believe he wasn't, then there are similar agents on other Esavian worlds. If we can locate some of them we'll have our double-correlates."

  "It is disturbing," said Saada, "It is profoundly disturbing to think that some outside agency is using the Esavians against the Semid Federation. Who would want such a thing?"

  "Who is tangential," said Ionoski, "why is more relevant. Who else is a target also deserves cons
ideration. If we can answer either of those then Who will be easier to determine."

  Saada considered this a moment. "Sela'hai, Master Ionoski. You and your team have done exceptionally well. The Semid Federation is greatly indebted to you and the League for the service you have provided us. We hope you will stay and enjoy our hospitality a few days before you begin your journey home."

  "Close the hose a milli," exclaimed Kidwell, "That sounds like you think we're done here!"

  "But you are." Saada and the rest now looked puzzled. "Our request to the League was for assistance in keeping our people safe and in helping to neutralize the threats to our sovereignty. None of us expected... this, but you have completed your mission admirably. Even more so considering the great personal risk and cost to yourselves."

  Kidwell looked at Ionoski, Micah and Ferrel before speaking again.

  "Respectfully, seigneur, you can torque that up your nose sideways without grease. We faced everything from boredom to death and I personally took three broken ribs getting this information. If you think for one nanosecond that we're ready to stop now then you're full of tah'koos and pickles."

  That startled both Movvi and Saada. Saada blinked, looked from Kidwell to the others and blinked again.

  "What she means, sir," said Micah, "is that we respectfully request your permission to continue our investigation now, while the data is still hot."

  "All truth and no blather on that," added Ferrel, "These stapes made me work. Me. Actual work! That metavirus was not easy to invert and neither was cracking their code."

  "The League," continued Ionoski, not missing a beat, "will, no doubt, want further investigation into this matter. The implications are grave and extend far beyond the Semid Federation. Since you have suffered such a disruption to your populace and at the moment have thin resources I have no doubt the League will authorize the continuation of this mission and offer resources and assistance for doing so. The full formalities would waste time better spent investigating now."

  "I... see." Saada clenched his jaw and thought a long moment. "Since, it seems, you are all emphatically and aggressively determined to continue... We will gratefully accept your offer of further assistance and help you in any way we can."