Neptune Crossing (The Chaos Chronicles) (11 page)

where if you still had your neuro,

you'd be able to connect to the datanet? ///

Bandicut walked a little more briskly. /I guess so. Why?/

/// There's something I'd like to try.

I might be able to improve

on what we did a while ago. ///

/You're going to try to plug me in?/ Bandicut felt his pulse rate increase. /Well—there are the operations centers, but we couldn't just walk in and use them. Anyway,
I
can't just plug in—or even pretend to—without people noticing. Charlie, everyone knows I lost my neuro!/

/// Isn't there someplace private? ///

/I suppose we could use the rec center. That wouldn't give us full datanet access, but we could reach some of the public info services. We could use a booth, and nobody would know if we were connecting direct, or by screen./

/// Sounds perfect.

Let's go. ///

*

From the smell of the rec center, someone had thrown a party here recently, with liberal amounts of locally fermented, hydroponic-grain beverages. By now, the dep-heads had probably plastered the system board with notices warning against any future such occurrences. Bandicut wrinkled his nose against the stale beer smell and found an empty booth. He didn't give a damn what management thought, as long as they didn't try to associate him with it.

/Here we go,/ he said, locking the booth door and sliding into the console seat. /This is where people come when they want to send or receive messages from in-system. They expect people to be looking for privacy here. But we aren't going to get the higher functions./

/// We'll see. ///

He raised his eyebrows, but didn't ask what the quarx meant. /How do you want to do this? First I need to check the postings. I can do that from here./ He poked at the screen controls and brought up the newest notices and job listings. He noted that a brief summary of his mishap was posted, with a warning that until an investigation was completed, all rover electrical systems should be regarded as susceptible to possible cryo-failure. /They bought it,/ he muttered in disbelief. He checked the job postings and cursed. He was to report to mining ops for the early shift the next day. /They didn't buy it that much./ With a sigh, he flicked off the screen. He didn't even want to read the newsies of his accident, knowing how much the local amateur newsie reporters took from the rumor mills.

/What do you want me to do?/ he asked the quarx.

/// Put the 'trodes on your head. ///

/Charlie, they took my implants out. There's nothing for the 'trodes to connect to./

/// Leave that to me. ///

He reached for the headset and hesitated, hands holding the set in midair. /Are you sure you know what you're doing? If this goes wrong.../

/// It might not work.

But I don't think there's any danger. ///

Though he found this less than wholly reassuring, Bandicut positioned the neural set over his temples. The inductance electrodes pressed firmly against the spots on either side where he had once had receptor plates implanted under his skin. The contact made him acutely aware of the emptiness, the lack of what had once felt as important to him as his eyes, or his hands.

/// Okay, I need to make some adjustments.

Try to keep your thoughts still. ///

He tried. He pushed away a fleeting rush of excitement at the thought that the quarx might actually be able to work a miracle here. He thought of the medical labs; he thought of the wrecked buggy; he thought of sleep; he thought of a pink elephant. He thought of how miserable he was going to feel if he got his hopes up for this and then nothing happened. 

/// Hush, John.

Wait...maybe I can help. ///

He felt something like a warm, soft rain in his mind and felt the thoughts melt away, leaving him relaxed and expectant. The quarx must have done something to give him soothing alpha-wave relaxation. It was blissful.

There was a brief rush of static, and then he fell off the edge of a cliff into a deep, long, weightless fall...

>

>>>

>>>>>>

>>>>>>>>>>>>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>—<
alpha-connect
>—>>>>>>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>—<
full-neural link
>—>>>>>

>>>>>>>>>>>>

>>>>>>

>>>

>

——

Lights sparkled around him, like a fishing net encrusted with diamonds, flung against a night sky. Each light burned with possibility, with connectedness and energy. His heart leaped. The linkup was a little rough, but...this was precisely what he had been hoping for...if it was real.

Charlie cut in.

/// It is real.

Is this the datanet we should be looking for? ///

/Charlie—this shouldn't be possible! Not without the neuros! How did you do it?/

/// Oh, it was just

a matter of making certain cross-connections

in the neuronal structure— ///

/You mean, altering my
brain
?/

/// Well, no.

I mean, not—well, no.

I mean using MY quasi-neuronal capacities

to bridge the missing elements

in YOUR neuronal system.

I merely altered certain characteristics

of the space-time matrix around your neurons.

It's basically how

I talk to you, anyway. ///

/Ah,/ he thought dizzily. /That was another thing I'd been meaning to ask you about./

/// Now you know.

But let's not get bogged down in technical details.

We have a lot to do,

now that we're tuned in and turned on,

as your people like to say. ///

/I've never said that—/

/// Fucking figure of speech, okay? ///

Bandicut blinked, then laughed out loud. /Charlie! You just made a joke! Did you know you just made a joke?/

/// Ha ha.

I think we should get busy here.

I see a lot going on,

and I think we should explore it.

Let's tie into some of those glittering bangles

and see what there is to see.

Are you with me? ///

/Where else would I be?/

A tendril of light leaped out and linked him, sizzling, to one, then two, then three of the pulsing nexi of data.

Chapter 7

Datanet

>>  ...CERES EXCHANGE down 23 points in final trading. Following are highlighted prices (Euroyen): ..... Asteroid Aggregate, 75.73 ...... Boeing-Ford Pressure Hulls, 64.94 ...... Ceres-Mars Express, 57.60 ... >>

Stock quotes? They were flying by in a blur. Directly above and below it were other streams of data, just as blinding. He blinked his attention back to the quotes:

>>  ...Sanyo Mining & Extraction, 83.25 ...... Sirtus Astronics, 54.76 ...... SemiOps Systems, 93.44 ... >>

He jerked his attention away. What the hell did he care about stock prices? And why would Charlie care?

The quarx spoke from his accustomed position in the center of Bandicut's consciousness.

/// I don't know if it's relevant.

But it is interesting. ///

One of the other channels was a political digest service. News capsules were streaming past:

>>  ...Secretary of the New England Nations denied Vatican assertions that recent state-sponsored ordinations of women were intended to subvert the authority of the Papacy. Observers noted significant contradictions, however....

>>  ...third attempt on the life of Renaldo Pelliquez, CEO of the Caribbean Coalition, thwarted when an eleven-year-old street hawker noticed a suspicious vehicle in the central plaza of Ponce, Puerto Rico....

>>  ...New efforts to open North China to world trade received a setback when.... >>

He could only snatch a sentence or two at a time; it was like trying to drink from a fire hose. He lurched from the political channel into another, a geyser of musical/video entertainment. It was compressed, accelerated, impossible to track.

/// Ride with it, John.

Go with the flow. ///

/Go with the flow? I can't keep up with this!/

/// Your baud rate was a little low,

so I increased it,

to get as much data as possible. ///

He tried, but it was impossible to keep up with the flow—or to back away from it. /I can't do it, Charlie! You're drowning me!/

/// Okay, wait—

let's try a different perspective... ///

The riptide of data dropped away abruptly, so that he seemed to be looking down over the datastreams from a great height. He gasped for breath. Everything was changed: the data were a topography, a smooth blur of broad brushstrokes, a swirling of smoke, the individual data-points no more visible than the molecules of water in Niagara Falls. It was easier to watch now, but he couldn't quite see the point of it.

/// Watch this. ///

He blinked, and it changed again: the viewpoint flicking wider, then wider again. He saw a hundred more channels of fluid movement, on a vast scale, as if he were floating high above a carved and runneled plain, watching fluvial motion as the gods might watch it. He was reminded of fractal imagery in which certain geometric qualities persisted even through repeated changes of scale. It was an orchestrated image of turbulence, chaotic beyond his comprehension.

/// Precisely.

Fascinating, isn't it? ///

/Yes, I suppose so—but what good is it? I thought you wanted information about—/ He paused and thought a moment. /Actually, what
did
you want information about?/

/// For now, exactly what you're seeing.

The details are still entrained in the raw data,

but we don't need them just now. ///

/We don't? Why not?/

The quarx coughed delicately.

/// By "we," actually,

I meant the translator and I. ///

Bandicut felt strangely let down. /Oh. You mean, I wouldn't be able to understand it even if you told me?/

/// I meant no offense, John.

Remember, we talked about dynamical chaos

and ways of analyzing it? ///

Bandicut strained to remember. They'd gotten interrupted, and he hadn't quite been following it to begin with.

/// Well,

this information can be translated

into a harmonic resonance

that will ultimately,

through various cycles of analysis,

move us toward that answer you wanted. ///

Bandicut remained mute with incomprehension.

/// About what's going to hit the Earth?

And what to do about it? ///

/Ah. That./ Bandicut watched the strange graphical display with an uneasy feeling of disconnectedness. Whatever information was contained in there was going to remain completely incomprehensible, unless Charlie did something to explain it.

/// John? Are you listening?

I'm trying to help.

Do you hear that musical activity? ///

He listened. In the background there was indeed a deep, thrumming harmonic rhythm, which he supposed could be called music. /Yes./

/// Well, that's the sound of the turbulence,

filtered and partially transformed.

To me, it's still mostly incomprehensible.

But the translator can actually turn this

into useful attractor-equations. ///

Bandicut felt a great ringing emptiness where his understanding was supposed to be. Still, he had to try. /You mean...to predict broad changes in...patterns of...?/ His voice trailed off.

/// Not exactly.

I mean, that can be done, yes.

But what we really want

is to derive actual detail from this— ///

Detail? /How's that?/ Bandicut croaked.

/// —though Heaven forbid

you should ask me how. ///

He blinked, and felt an involuntary snarl rising in his throat. /I
am
asking you!/

/// Well, I acknowledge the question.

But it's all in the translator's core programs,

which I did not create,

and only partially understand.

As I explained before,

I am neither the owner,

nor the designer,

nor the master,

of the translator.

I am merely paired up with it. ///

Bandicut absorbed that with some incredulity, but the quarx continued without pause.

/// Anyway, we're getting good data here,

but I need a way to channel it to the translator. ///

/Is that a problem? I thought you had everything locked in. I thought you had our TV and our datanet and all that shit./

/// Well, yes.

We had all that...shit...

as you so finely put it. ///

Bandicut frowned. /You mean, you don't now?/

/// Sadly, no.

The TV was the first to go,

when they stopped using open broadcasts. ///