Dark as Day (41 page)

At last Uncle Karolus said, “Let me get this straight. We obtain these medical samples, and we do these tests. In return, we get to install our Ops Center on Pandora and use it as long as we need it. Right?”

“Rustum Battachariya assumes that will be for no more than a year. Somehow he knows of the penalty clauses in our contract.”

“We don’t have to kill anybody, or pay Battachariya some enormous fee?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then I’ll say something I never thought I’d be able to say.” Karolus faced the whole table. “We have Alex coming up with this deal, and Hector all set to tie down Lucy Mobarak. I see hope for the males of the younger generation after all.”

Alex was not sure he was ready for compliments from Uncle Karolus. He said, “But I don’t know how we’ll obtain the samples. Somebody may have to go to Earth.”

“When the man himself is here on Ganymede, having another set of tests? Forget about Earth.” Karolus waved a dismissive hand at Alex and turned to the head of the table. “Prosper? If I guarantee that little bit of business, what do you say?”

Prosper Ligon had been quietly examining his own notes. Finally he nodded. “The matter will, of course, call for a family vote. However, there appears to be a certain serendipity of timing. One of our best physics research teams is available. It has been held in reserve, pending a go-ahead with Saturn operations for Starseed-Two. If the arrangement with the man Battachariya is consummated at once, there will still be an inevitable delay of weeks before the research team is needed. And even if we put our chief scientist, Bengt Suomi, in charge—which I strongly recommend and can arrange—the cost of complying with Battachariya’s request will be negligible. Therefore, I so move.”

Hector woke from an exhausted trance and said, “Move what?”

“Uncle Prosper says the Battachariya proposal looks good.” Karolus glanced around the table. “I’ll second. All in favor?”

The nods were casual and in Lena’s case feeble, but they came from everyone.

“Carried unanimously.” Karolus stood up. “We need to wrap this up as soon as we can, so we’d better start. Sebastian Birch, right, held in science research quarantine? This shouldn’t take long.”

“One moment.” Prosper Ligon held up a hand. “Before we adjourn, a moment’s silence for Agatha seems appropriate.”

“Of course. Respect for the dead.” Karolus sat down.

After a few seconds he said, “Right,” stood up again, and hurried out. Alex stared after him, then at the people remaining. He reflected that this was his family, his own flesh and blood. But he understood them not at all—and he was not sure that he wanted to.

27

Milly Wu paused at the closed door, took a deep breath, and stood up straighter.
This is the big-time, lady. Better not blow it. Don’t gush, don’t stammer, don’t drool
.

Within the room beyond, collected in one place for the first time ever, she would find the most cunning and devious minds in the solar system. Here was the cream of the cream, the pick of the Puzzle Network’s Master class.

Milly had been allowed into that elite group only because Pack Rat had made a special arrangement in return for unspecified future favors. But he had made it clear that she would be a decidedly junior figure, an observer more than a participant.
Sit, observe, learn—and keep quiet.

She wished that Jack Beston were here with her to provide his own gruff form of reassurance. He had promised to come to Ganymede as soon as he had the Argus Station’s own interpretation effort up and running, but that was poor consolation. Milly needed him
now
, as she prepared to open the door and face the legends of her adolescence. Pack Rat had named some of the people assembled to work on the SETI signal interpretation: Claudius, The Joker, Torquemada, Attoboy, Sneak Attack, Ghost Boy, plus
Megachirops
, the Great Bat himself. Milly had struggled with—and failed to solve—problems set by every one of them. Her own best efforts, posted on the Network under her chosen name, Atropos, had never remained unsolved for longer than a day.

That doesn’t matter. This isn’t a level playing field. I found the signal and I’ve thought about nothing else since the day I discovered it. Get in there.

Milly slid open the door and stepped through into the room. She was not sure what to expect. A bunch of freaks, who hid in the Puzzle Network because they were poorly equipped to cope with the rest of life? She had heard that view often enough—mainly from her own family, when they realized that she was fascinated by abstract challenges. “Why bother with such nonsense? You don’t need to think. You’re an attractive girl, you’ll get boyfriends and a husband easy enough.”

The single exception was Uncle Edgar, gently persuading Milly of her talents and coaxing her to stretch herself to the limit.

Or beyond.

Like now.

Milly stood at one end of a narrow corridor, twenty or thirty paces long. The floor was a sound-deadening thick carpet, while sound-absorbing tiles covered the walls and ceiling. Painted blue doors, three meters apart, were set into the walls on both sides. Every door except one was closed. Before the first one, close to Milly’s right hand, sat an illuminated sign.

At the top, in flashing red, she read the words: SILENCE, PLEASE.

Below in smaller letters came a list of names and matching room numbers. Milly saw ATROPOS: CUBICLE 12, two-thirds of the way down. She recognized about half of the names on the list. Next to each one was a small flashing icon that read PRESENT OR ABSENT. Almost everyone was here. At the bottom of the list, again as a bold flashing sign: RESPECT INDIVIDUAL PRIVACY. THE PRESENCE OF ANOTHER NETWORK MEMBER IS NOT AN INVITATION TO INTRUDE. DO NOT INVADE ANOTHER’S WORK SPACE. PROGRESS REVIEW MEETING IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM, 7.00–7.50.

With this for a greeting it did not surprise Milly to find no one in sight. She crept along the corridor toward Cubicle 12. On the way she had to pass one open door, that of Cubicle 7. The intimidating signs at the main entrance had made it clear that she ought to ignore whatever or whoever was inside, but her own curiosity was so great that she could not resist a sideways peek.

The layout of furniture in the little room was familiar. The table, console, terminal, and numerous display units were like those at the analysis stations on the Argus Project. The added feature, of a stand loaded with food and drink, made excellent sense. Milly was often so absorbed that she worked on long after she should have taken a break, to the benefit of neither her body nor her mental efficiency.

The room’s fixtures, however, were not its most important feature. Someone was in the room—a man, sitting with his chair swung to face away from the desk and console and staring out of the open door.

Despite the instructions at the entrance of the room, Milly could not just ignore the occupant. The man was looking right at her, and he was smiling.

“Keep going if you want to,” he said. “Or come on in.”

Milly, disconcerted, did neither. She stopped walking and turned to face him. The man was in his fifties, deep-chested and strongly-built. Although his eyes were pale and hard to read behind prominent brow ridges, his whole person seemed to exude warmth and empathy.

“Are you with the Puzzle Network?” Milly asked at last.

“I am.”

“The sign says that this cubicle is for Torquemada.” Milly stopped short of expressing her conviction that it couldn’t be true. In the past she had struggled for weeks with Torquemada’s brain-bending problems, and in her imagination the torturer was a gaunt, robed figure with spidery fingers, peering in the flame-lit dungeon at his racked victim.

The tone in her voice must have betrayed her doubts, but the man just grinned. “That’s right. I’m Torquemada. I shouldn’t really be here at all—I’m busy on a dozen other problems, and I don’t have time to pull my weight. But I couldn’t resist coming in for awhile to kibitz. There never was a challenge like this one. Now, how about you? Are
you
with the Puzzle Network?”

“I guess so.” It was a weak answer, delivered in a weak voice. In spite of the warning sign at the entrance, Milly spoke more loudly. “My Network name is Atropos. I’m very junior, though, and quite unknown.”

“Not to me. Atropos was a three-time Junior Champion. Aren’t you also Milly Wu?”

“Yes. How did you know that?”

“Because I’m not blind and deaf. Your image has been all over the Ganymede blurts for weeks. You discovered the Wu-Beston anomaly. That’s the reason everybody is here today.”

Milly glanced up and down the corridor. “The most invisible everybodies I’ve ever seen.”

“What did you expect to find?”

“Well …”

What had she expected? She could say what she had
hoped
to find—exactly what she had written to Uncle Edgar.

“I assumed that this room would contain an enthusiastic group of people, combining the forces of their brilliant minds to evolve meaning from an enigmatic signal developed by alien intelligences and transmitted for reception by other sentient beings living many light-years away.”

That had come out far more pompous than she’d intended, but Torquemada took it in stride. He shrugged.

“Then you should be delighted. That’s exactly what you’ve got.” And, when she stared, “Come on, Milly Wu. You’re dealing with the Puzzle Network, not a political convention. How many years were you a Network nut?”

“Nine.”

“How many other Network members did you meet?”

“None.” Milly had sudden memories of a long-ago birthday party and a shy thirteen-year-old boy. “Or maybe one. I had suspicions and I think he did, but we never asked each other.”

“Absolutely appropriate. I’m the odd man out in this place. Most Puzzle Network members aren’t like sheep or bees. They don’t herd and they don’t swarm. It’s a minor miracle getting them within a kilometer of each other, even behind closed doors, and that’s only happening because this is the central point for data receipt and analysis distribution. Everyone is so afraid of missing something, they’ll put up with anything—even proximity. But not personal presence, except at the progress review meetings. I’ve been a member for thirty years. Until I came here I had met only one other.”

“Which one?” Milly was curious to know who else was this friendly.

“
Megachirops
, alias the Great Bat. But I suspect he’s the most antisocial of the lot.” Torquemada waved a hand. “Bat’s here, down at the end. Try and visit him and you’ll wish you hadn’t. But if you wait you may see him later in the day, in the conference room at the end of the corridor. Then again, you may not.”

“I don’t understand this. What’s the point of coming here, if no one will talk to anyone else?”

“You’ll see how it’s done, as soon as you go to your cubicle. But if you have questions and if I’m still around, feel free to drop in and ask.”

He smiled again, and once more Milly felt the strength of his personality. She started to move toward her own room, then realized that he had ended their meeting so smoothly that she had omitted to ask an important question. While they were talking she had become increasingly convinced that she ought to know who he was. She had seen him before, somehow and somewhere.

She took two backward steps so that she could again see into the open door of his cubicle.

“Do you mind if I ask you one of those questions now?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“What’s your name?—I mean your real name, not your Puzzle Network name.”

“That seems fair, since I know yours. My name is Cyrus Mobarak.”

“Thank you.” Milly retreated along the corridor, which seemed a better reaction than standing and gaping. No wonder his face seemed familiar. She had been speaking with the Sun King, inventor of the Moby fusion plants and one of the wealthiest and most influential people in the System. But here he was simply Torquemada. Within the hierarchy of the Puzzle Network, money and family and influence meant nothing. Ingenuity and imagination were what counted, and all that counted. It gave her a new respect for the unseen faces behind the corridor’s closed doors.

She entered Cubicle 12 and sat down in the single chair. She noticed that the stand to her left was empty. Tastes varied, so apparently each person brought his or her own preferred food and drink. Something to think about before she came here tomorrow, but today she would manage without. There was much to learn, much to do. She couldn’t afford to waste time hunting for food.

The equipment seemed familiar, and as a first move she turned on the console and the dozen displays. The message that appeared on every one was simple and specific: A REMINDER OF AN OPERATING RULE: NOTHING THAT WE RECEIVE FROM ODIN STATION SHOULD BE SENT ANYWHERE ELSE. IT MAY BE SHARED INTERNALLY, BUT MUST BE TREATED AS PRIVILEGED INFORMATION.

Jack Beston had warned her to expect something like this. He argued that
conclusions
drawn from data were another matter, and could be communicated. Milly was not so sure. She had decided, without getting into an argument with Jack, that she was going to judge each individual case as it happened.

As the displays began to fill with other information, she realized that Cyrus Mobarak—Torquemada, she ought to think of him that way within this environment—had been right. Thoughts, conclusions, conjectures, and results both positive and negative were swapped freely among the group members. Sometimes you could tell the originator of a message, sometimes not. Credit and personal ego did not seem to be an issue.

Milly soon realized something else. This group had been busy while she was in transit from Jovian L-4 to Ganymede, and already they had done an immense amount of work. It would take days, just to absorb their progress.

Milly cleared her mind of all other thoughts, made herself comfortable, and concentrated on the displays. At first she didn’t care about details. On the way to Ganymede she had done her own share of obsessive thinking and decided that the signal, all twenty-one billion digits of it, was too large for any human mind to comprehend except in gross terms. She needed to build up a feeling of general structure before attacking details.