Orbital Decay (37 page)

Hamilton jumped in again. “Those key words or phrases, of course, are those which the NSA and its clients consider to be dangerous or unpatriotic or un-American, whatever. If one of those words or phrases pops up during a conversation, the computer does two things. One, it traces the origin and the destination of the signal and identifies it according to the phone number or frequency it has used. So it gets the name of the parties who sent and received the message, whether it be by telephone or radio or computer. At the same time, it logs the call and its identification and alerts someone that a so-called dangerous conversation is taking place.”

“All right, I think I understand,” Joni interrupted. “Say I was in New York and I called a friend in, oh, England…”

“Or it could be across town, or in Akron,” Sloane added. “Once more satellites are added to the network, they could probably patch in on telephone calls from one house to the next one on the block.”

“Whoa, wait a minute,” Chang said. “Local calls aren’t relayed by comsats, so how can anyone patch into them?”

Hamilton and Sloane both shrugged. “We’re not sure,” Sam replied, “but the file we read specifically mentioned the capability to tap into local-to-local communications. Our guess is that the Ear is, or will be, interfaced with SIGINT-type satellites. Those are satellites which are capable of listening in on distant telephone communications. They’ve been with us since the 1980s, when the superpowers used them as spy satellites.”

“This is the likelihood,” Hamilton added. “If the NSA is going to scheme something this big and extensive, they’re not going to leave local communications untouched.”

“Okay, I got that,” Joni continued, holding her hands up. “Here’s my example: I called a friend in, okay, Akron, and I said something like, ‘Let’s shoot the President tomorrow,’ or ‘Let’s bomb City Hall….’”

“Or, ‘The President is a scum-sucking rat fink,’ or ‘Do you know where I can buy some pot?’” Sloane shrugged. “You don’t even have to be serious. You could wish aloud that the King of England be run over by a garbage truck or that your friend’s town be used as a test site for the neutron bomb, and somebody might pay attention.”

“Right, so I say something nasty and seditious,” Joni continued, nodding her head. “Does that mean the computer will pick up that phrase, trace both me and my friend, and alert someone that possible sedition or criminal conspiracy is taking place?”

“Right,” Sloane said. “That’s exactly what would take place.”

“So what would be considered a dangerous word or phrase?”

“Anything they damn well please,” Sloane replied in a low voice.

There were a few moments of silence as everyone considered the implications. “Well, it’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Virgin Bruce said at last. “I mean, they could cut down on a lot of crime that way, or stop terrorism before it starts, or…”

“Ah,
c’mon
, Bruce!” Jack slapped his hands on his knees in anger. “This way
anything
could be made into a crime!
Anyone
could be cast as a potential criminal or terrorist! Innocent people would be hurt as much as the guilty.”

“He’s right, Bruce,” Popeye said.

Everyone turned to look at Hooker, who had not said a word during the whole meeting. Realizing that he was suddenly the center of attention, and why—he seldom said anything—Popeye felt himself blush, and look down at the deck.

“Go on,” Hamilton said, his voice at a normal pitch once again. “What’s on your mind, Popeye?”

“Well…” Popeye spoke slowly, unaccustomed to speaking his mind before a lot of people and wondering how he had become so shy over the past months. “It would be like in Orwell’s
1984
, with the Thought Police monitoring what everyone said, inferring treason from casual conversations. I mean, we’ve had it happen again and again in history. The Salem witch trials and the McCarthy hearings and the Accuracy in Academia movement. Shit, they arrested a lot of people in America a hundred years ago, during World War I, for violating the Alien and Sedition Acts, just for saying things which seemed to support Germany.”

“Goddamn,” Virgin Bruce said, visibly impressed. “I didn’t know you were so educated, pal.”

Popeye shrugged, feeling a bit proud of himself. “When I used to trawl for shrimp, there wasn’t much to do sometimes. I took books out on the water and read a lot. Uh, and I did a correspondence course with the University of Florida. But the thing is, despite the First Amendment and the principles of free speech, there has always been a history of the U.S. government listening in on the people and taking the names of those who said things which were politically disagreeable. However…” He shook his head in amazement. “This is the worst yet, if it’s true. No one will be safe. It’ll end freedom of speech.”

“Nice speech.” Virgin Bruce leaned back in his chair and crossed in his arms in a gesture of nonchalance. “Okay, assuming that everything you’ve found out is true, why did you tell us about it?”

“Because we’ve got to put a stop to it,” Hamilton replied.

“Ohhh,” Virgin Bruce retorted, rolling his eyes, “
we’ve
got to put a stop to it.” He shook his head. “Look, Jack, I agree with you that this is serious stuff, but what the hell do you expect us to do about it? I mean… shit, I’m just a grunt spaceman. Do you think I look like the type who gives a shit about the fate of democracy or something?”

“Frankly, yeah, I do,” Hamilton said calmly. “A couple of months ago you risked your own butt to save the lives of Webb and Honeyman. You did that because you cared, and you were able to do that because… well, I don’t mean to offend you… but you’re a natural-born spaceman.”

This broke everyone up, and Hamilton grinned in spite of himself. “Well, admit it,” he said, gesturing toward Virgin Bruce. “Look at this clown. Look at yourselves. Fifty years ago it was only test pilots and scientists who went into space. Now it’s slobs like us…”

“Like
him
!” both Joni and Chang shouted in unison, pointing at Virgin Bruce.

“Okay, like him.”

“God’ll get you for that, Jack,” Bruce murmured, red-faced but grinning.

“If the NSA doesn’t first,” Hamilton replied. “But now it’s people like us who are living up here, doing all the things which were only dreamed about years ago. I mean—and I don’t want to ring in those hoary old clichés—but we’re the pioneers, folks. We’re the ones who are really opening up space for the world, for everybody in the human race.”

“God help the human race,” Chang said with a snicker.

“If you like, but I’d rather it be us. Look, if we’re up here, we’re the pioneers. Take a look at history. It’s always been the misfits, the losers, the weirdos, the people running from the law or the tax collectors or their wives who’ve started things. Look at most of the people who colonized America. Look at the people who ended up colonizing Antarctica. The weirdos do it eventually, not the governments or the military, and if they don’t like what’s going on, they change the rules.”

“What Jack’s trying to say,” Sloane continued, “is that if we don’t make the decisions for what goes on in space, who will? The guys on Earth? There’s Skycorp, who have this P.R. thing going about how the powersats are going to release the world from the energy crunch, and cooperating with the NSA to bug everyone in the world. The government? They’re the ones who started the whole thing.”

“So? Let’s send a letter to the
New York Times
,” said Bruce. “Tip them off. Get something to CNN or CBS. Fuck, that’s what the press are there to do, to expose stuff like this.”

Joni frowned pensively and gently thumped her fist on Bruce’s shoulder. “I don’t think so,” she said thoughtfully. “I’m sure a newspaper would be interested, yes, but we’d have to transmit anything we said to them. If this satellite system is what it’s rumored to be, then it could intercept our message as soon as we link with the normal communications channels, which we’d have to do eventually. I could figure out how to do it, but I can’t see any means of getting a message through to any public channel without being caught.”

Hamilton nodded. “Sam and I thought of that when we were talking about this yesterday. Besides, if it got into the papers, how much real good would it do? Let’s face it. People down there have become apathetic after all the shit that hit the fan in the crazy years. How many people would pay attention? Hell, come to think of it, how many would even take Bruce’s stand and say that this kind of surveillance was a good thing?”

“Hey, I get your point,” Bruce said quickly, waving his hands. “I see where this is something really twisted, y’know. But why are we the people who have to stop this?”

“Who else do you have in mind?” Jack replied. “NASA? If they’re not in on it, then think about what a bang-up job they’ve done as a regulatory agency. They rubber-stamped the Vulcan blowout as being an unforseeable accident and dismissed the whole thing. You think they’d do much differently this time, when they’re renting launch facilities at the Cape to Skycorp and helping them with R&D?”

“You’ve got a point,” Popeye said.

Hamilton nodded. “Then who’ve you got left, who can be trusted? Which senators and congressmen who might not potentially be involved? How do you contact them if you think they could be trusted?”

“The Russians,” Joni said.

Virgin Bruce blew out his cheeks. “I ain’t cooperating with no fucking Commie.”

“The Japanese,” Chang said.

“Who knows? Maybe this is their revenge for Hiroshima.” Sloane shrugged. “I mean, there’s a chance that they could be involved, since there’s apparently some cooperation involved with other countries. When you think about the Tokyo riots and all the stuff that’s gone down over there…”

“So what does that leave us?” Hamilton shrugged. “It comes down to us, guys. We’ve been thinking about it, Sam and I, and we have an idea. It’s risky as all hell, but the people in this room… which is why we picked just you few… could pull it off.”

“Everyone here has a certain specialty,” Sloane said, leaning closer. “All of us can do something which could help…”

“Hey,” Virgin Bruce said, pointing a finger at Sam’s face. “I’m not asking you, I’m asking him. Stop playing boy sidekick, okay?” He looked at Hamilton. “Let’s hear it from you, Jack. How do you think we can do something about this, if we can do anything?”

“There’s no reason to be nasty about it,” Hamilton said, casting a glance at Sloane. “But if you want it from me, then here’s the lowdown. Besides the fact that everyone here has demonstrated themselves able to keep one secret, and therefore able to keep another… we hope… there’s also the fact that each has a certain area of specialization aboard the station. You and Popeye are used to working in space, Joni is a communications officer, Dave’s the Docks chief, and Sam’s a hacker. All this figures in a scheme Sam and I have figured out, of how we can put the Ear out of commission before it goes on-line.”

He stopped and looked around at the others. “This is the point of no return, friends. If you don’t want to be in on this, go ahead and leave now. We’ll trust you to keep your mouth shut. But if you give a damn about little things like freedom of expression and the right of pioneers to decide what happens on the frontier, then I’d suggest that you stick around. But if you do, I’ll let you know now that you’re part of the conspiracy. There’s no backing out after this.”

Jack fell quiet, and it was silent for a few moments in the compartment. Hooker stared at the seed racks and at the tomato vines growing at the far end of the module. I can leave now, he thought. This really shouldn’t involve me. I’ve got enough problems of my own. He noticed Dave Chang moving restlessly, as if he, too, were trying to make up his mind. I should go, Hooker thought. I should stay. I should climb up this ladder right now. But if I do, all the stuff I said a minute ago, what does that mean? He closed his eyes….

And he didn’t get up to leave.

When he opened his eyes, he noticed that no one else had left and Hamilton was looking directly at him. He nodded his head, and Jack nodded back, smiling. “Okay,” the hydroponics engineer said. “I’m glad to hear it. Sam?”

Sloane turned back to his computer terminal and typed in another code. A graphic image of the respective orbits of Skycan and Freedom Station appeared on the screen. “We know that the Ear’s command module, the switchboard, arrived at Freedom a few weeks ago,” Jack began, “and that they’ll be using it to put the Ear on-line in a few days….”

T
HE CREW OF OLYMPUS
got Labor Day off. There were not many similarities between working on Earth and working in space, but one was that a few of the holidays—Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas—were observed as paid days off by Skycorp. Labor Day was another. Vital functions, such as life-support, command, and communications, were kept going of course, operated by a skeleton crew who were given triple-time holiday pay according to the company’s agreement with the union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. However, most of the crew was off, which gave the conspirators time to get organized.

For Popeye, there wasn’t much to do. He and Virgin Bruce spent a couple of hours in the Docks with Chang, checking out the spacesuits they planned to pilfer from the prep room’s lockers. A freight OTV from Freedom Station had arrived at the Docks at 0800 earlier in the day, and once Chang had told Bob Harris again that he wasn’t looking well and that he should go back to his bunk and take care of himself, he and Bruce went to work on the little cargocraft—stripping the hold of everything unnecessary, lashing inside three extra oxygen tanks, and jury-rigging a latch handle to the inside of the hatch so that it could be opened from the inside. By this time, though, it had become apparent that Bruce and Chang could manage better on their own; a third man simply got in the way. So Popeye was excused from any more duties in the Docks.

“I’ll go see if Sam and Jack need any help,” Popeye said on his way out of the airlock.

Virgin Bruce shrugged, holding onto a rail with his right hand and cradling a welding laser under his left armpit. “Unless you really know your stuff with computer programming, I wouldn’t bother,” he replied. “Why don’t you go back to your bunk and get some shut-eye. You’ll need it.”