Neptune Crossing (The Chaos Chronicles) (12 page)

/So you missed out on a lot of good programming, huh? What about the datanet? You seem to know it pretty well./

/// That's on a tightline from stations in-system,

just like TV now. ///

Bandicut was still puzzled. /So, can't you pick up the laser beam?/

/// Well, we could.

But when you put your base here,

we had to move ourselves underground,

out of sight.

That meant modulating through the ice,

which was okay—until your mining ops

started blanketing the surface with smog deposition.

Now we can only pick up local transmissions,

and even that's difficult. ///

/But wait—you knew
I
was coming along toward your little cavern, didn't you? How'd you know that?/

/// Altogether different matter.

That was my direct sensing.

I felt your presence and state of mind.

But as for monitoring general activity

throughout the solar system—

that's been hard. ///

/My apologies,/ Bandicut said, not even sure why he felt the impulse to be sarcastic.

Charlie appeared not to notice.

/// Thanks to your help,

this is the best datastream we've had in years. ///

/Uh-huh. So now that you've got it, what are you going to do with it? How are you going to get it to the translator?/

/// I'm not sure, actually.

But I can hold quite a lot in memory,

while we figure out a way. ///

/We?/

/// You and I.

If you come up with a good idea,

don't think I won't listen to it. ///

Bandicut nodded to himself, unsure whether to be flattered or not.

/// Hey—look at that signal over there! ///

He felt a sudden slowdown in the transmission speed. The fractal-landscape dropped away, and an image-panel flipped up into view. It held the face of a man, who looked directly into Bandicut's eyes. A voice boomed into Bandicut's head like a bass drum:

>>  "SEE HOW MUCH FASTER YOU CAN TRANSLOAD THAT ALL IMPORTANT DATACACHE WHEN YOU OPEN AN ACCOUNT WITH
PLANETVIEW ONLINE SYSTEMS!

>>  "FOR A LOW-COST DEMONSTRATION, ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS SAY
'OKAY—I'LL TRY!'

>>  "OUR INSTANT-EXCHANGE SYSTEM WILL OPEN A TEMPORARY ACCOUNT FOR YOU WITHOUT SIGNAL DELAY—EVEN IF YOU'RE CALLING FROM ONE OF OUR DISTANT PLANETARY OUTPOSTS. GIVE US A TRY NOW!" >>

/// Hey, let's do it, ///

the quarx urged.

/Why? It'd take eight hours for our request to bounce to Earth and back—/

/// No no,

they've got it in terminal memory.

We can get on right away.

Let's do it. ///

/That all depends on whether I have the credit for whatever you have in mind,/ Bandicut answered cautiously, tempted despite himself.

/// They said it's low cost, ///

the quarx pointed out.

The salesman nodded and jabbed his finger at Bandicut.

>>  "Your friend has the right idea, sir! There's absolutely no risk. You'll have your account at once, and if you're not one hundred percent satisfied, we'll cancel with no further obliga—" >>

/All right, all right,/ Bandicut groaned.

>>  "All you have to do is say—" >>

/I'll try it now!/ Bandicut growled, hoping to cut off the sales pitch.

/// No, no—you're supposed to say— ///

>>  "Close enough." >>

The salesman winked and vanished, and in his place a large menu of options appeared, floating in space. Blinking at the top were the words:

<< ACCOUNT NOW ACTIVE! >>

<< The more you use it, the cheaper it becomes! >>

/Sure,/ Bandicut muttered. He sensed Charlie stirring eagerly. /So what do you want to do with this?/

/// May I? ///

He nodded and a flash of light stabbed out and touched a point on the menu index. Faster than he could follow, a submenu blinked on, and another light stabbed, calling up a third menu, then a fourth. Each time, the quarx made its choice before Bandicut could read the menu. Something to do with astronomical data...

/// Ah, here we are! ///

Pages of letters and numbers began swarming past at a dizzying rate. Bandicut blinked, trying to follow. It looked familiar. It
was
familiar; it was a table of data on the positions and movements of astronomical bodies.

/Is that an ephemeris?/ he protested. /Charlie, you could have gotten that stuff from the station library! It wouldn't have cost a cent!/

For a few moments there was no answer, as the data spun past at a rate too fast to follow. Then the quarx answered softly,

/// Library? Oh... ///

Bandicut sighed and watched the flow, not as individual datapoints, but as a flowing stream. The effort was giving him a headache. /Say, Charlie—/

The quarx sounded subdued.

/// Are you angry? ///

/I should be. But I'm wondering something. This obviously isn't being transmitted from off Triton. So how are they getting it to us so fast? I mean, it's one thing to have a sign-up module here in terminal memory, but they can't have their whole damn database loaded up to Triton!/

/// Hmm...good question.

Give me a moment to check something. ///

At that instant, the datastream ended, and a message scrolled across Bandicut's vision:

>>  You have received all of the data available at your present location. For a more in-depth output, please note your request now, and you will be notified when the additional information has been transmitted from our core systems in Earth orbit. Please remember: even Planetview can't violate the speed of light, hard though we may try. But no one can fulfill your request faster than PLANETVIEW! >>

/// We'd like the full, updated ephemeris—

including all comets and asteroids.

Okay? ///

The question seemed to be directed at Bandicut; but without waiting for his reply, a beam of light flashed out and made the request.

>>  Thank you. From Triton, your request will take a minimum of eight hours to fulfill. Thank you for using— >>

/Would you cut that damn thing off, please?/

The sound dropped to a whisper.

/So tell me. Where'd they get that ephemeris you just filed away?/

/// Actually...

er...I'm sorry, John...

I didn't realize... ///

/What?/

The quarx's voice was apologetic.

/// Well, from the datapath...

um...it looks like they fed it to us from,

uh, the station library. ///

There was a long silence, before Bandicut murmured, /You're telling me we just paid them through the nose to tap our own station library and feed it right back to us?/

/// Um...

I guess I owe you one, John.

Was it very expensive? ///

He exhaled noisily. /Let's check the charges. There it is.
Ho-ly smokes!
/

The quarx cringed. It felt to Bandicut as if his brain were wrinkling.

/// Is it that bad?

Or are you joking again? ///

He held out for a moment longer, before releasing the tension with a chuckle. /Aw, I guess I can afford it okay. It'll cost me a coupla' beers, though./

/// Good.

I mean...I'm sorry.

But anyway, you can't take it with you—

right? ///

Bandicut stared at a point in the dataspace where he imagined a quarx might be floating. /Now what exactly did you mean by that? Was that a figure of speech, or are you planning to take me somewhere?/

Charlie seemed nonplussed.

/// Nothing!

Fucking figure of speech! ///

A raucous laugh came up, Charlie's "laughtrack" covering up his embarrassment, rather poorly.

Bandicut made a mental cutting-of-the-throat gesture. He was rewarded with silence. /Are we done now? Can we get the hell out of this con operation?/

The answering voice was very small.

/// Okay. ///

The Planetview menus vanished. Bandicut was about to disconnect from the datanet as a whole, when he felt something like a hand touching him, lightly restraining him.

/// Just one more thing?

Please? ///

He sighed tolerantly. /What this time?/

/// Something I just thought of. ///

In the dark of the silenced datanet, a beam of light flicked out, triggering something he couldn't quite see. Before he could even ask, he felt a series of reactions cascading through the dataspace around him, dominoes falling through the silence and the dark. Though he couldn't quite follow what was happening, he had an uncomfortable suspicion that Charlie was somehow altering some of the fixed parameters of the datanet connection. He thought he heard an alarm sounding somewhere just at the edge of the system, but it fell silent so quickly that he wasn't actually sure he had heard it.

/// I hope no one else heard it, either. ///

/What are you doing?/

/// Hold on—

I've just about got the uplink

to the orbital station... ///

/WHAT?/

/// Now, if I can just defocus

their downlink beam by a hair... ///

Suddenly, without actually seeing the quarx's actions, he had a shockingly clear view of its results. He felt a dizzying buzz, datastreams flowing through his brain faster even than before, flashing through some jury-rigged linkage in the base's dataflow system, beaming up to the support station in orbit above Triton and flashing back down in a slightly widened and misaligned signal beam...a beam that just grazed the terrain where Bandicut and his rover had meandered.

A beam that at this moment was no doubt being monitored by an alien machine in a subterranean cavern.

/CHARLIE!/

/// Almost done.

A few more seconds...

there.

Off.

Signal back to normal— ///

/Charlie!/ he whispered dizzily.

/// —no essential communications interrupted,

just a brief anomaly in the transmission,

and if anybody traces it

they'll just wonder how the hell some ancient TV program

called "Father Knows Best"

got interposed over routine telemetry.

And why so much static.

Heh, heh. ///

Bandicut was weak with horror, with awe, with astonishment. /Jesus mokin' fokin' Christ, Charlie!/ he whispered, when he had regained the ability to speak. /Did you actually get all that data transmitted to your wonder-machine?/

/// I think so.

As for whether it was received and understood

I don't know yet.

But as they say,

you have to make hay while the sun shines.

Thanks for the help, pardner. ///

For a moment, Bandicut could not think of how to respond. Make hay while the sun shines? What the hell did that mean? He felt a sudden, draining self-doubt. Had he just betrayed his race to a clever alien invader...or taken the first step toward saving Earth?

/// John—it's going to be okay. ///

It wasn't as if he was used to this sort of thing, even in neurolink. He just had no idea what to think, or say.

/// We can leave now, if you want, ///

said the quarx softly.

/// I believe

you wanted to get some sleep? ///

Chapter 8

Mining Ops

He slept the sleep of the dead, emotionally and physically exhausted. When he'd first gotten back to his bunk, he'd been a nervous wreck, totally unable to sleep; but the quarx had touched something
here
in his mind, and
there
, and he had miraculously dropped off in a matter of minutes.

At some point during the night, he became aware of dreaming. He did not wake, but felt a profound inner certainty that came to life even in the depths of sleep. The dream was alien and at times alarming: images of ghostly lights drifting in darkness, and rushing toward him at great speed before expanding and turning inside out, with a bewildering series of flashes, and an abrupt twisting of the darkness. He felt that this was something more than just images of lights—that it was space-time itself twisting and devouring its own tail, that it was some quarxly transformation or journey, and he found himself unaccountably frightened and lonely...

And as that dream image flickered away, he glimpsed a creature like a slender tree trunk swaying in the wind, and he recognized it as one of the Fffff'tink. He knew that his quarx, or at least a quarx very
like
the quarx he knew, had lived in its mind for a very long time, during which the Fffff'tink endured solar flares, earthquakes, and opposition from its own fellows as it struggled to help move a remnant of its people into space, to escape a dying world. And during that time, the quarx died several times; and in the end, when the Fffff'tink died, releasing it, the quarx never learned for certain whether the Fffff'tink civilization had survived or not...