Portal-eARC (15 page)

“
Scheiss,”
Horst said distinctly. “You are correct. I believe I understand what you are getting at, Maddie.”

“Dammit,” A.J. said. “They’ll have backdoors into the
Odin
’s systems.”

“That’s one possibility, yes,” Madeline confirmed.

Mia nodded and touched controls that were out of view. “During the…disaster, there were no fewer than four interfering protocols trying to direct the cannon operations. Mr. Fitzgerald had placed cutouts in other vital systems under his direct control. As he was not a master programmer himself, any more than you, Madeline, those were either present all along, or were at least making use of embedded hooks in the software that gave him priority access.”

“The latter, I’d guess,” Horst said after a pause. “The main control protocols were given to the General, once the need to reveal the existence of the weaponry was determined. Correct, sir?”

“Yes. He and I had access to other override protocols as well, but the ones he used were separate. I believe many of them must have been updates he received or created en route, once he began to suspect that I would not be…entirely cooperative.”

“Then we must presume that these buried control systems are still at least partially operative. As we have not renewed full connectivity with the outside world for
Odin
, they have not had an opportunity to activate them, but as we get closer in-system and are using
Odin
as part of our rescue vessel, the chances that they will be able to make contact and in some way take control of shipboard systems increases.”

“No, no, this is just stupid,” A.J. burst out. “They couldn’t possibly think we didn’t send Nick the straight dope, can they? I mean, really, would they think
we
are that moronic?”

Madeline smiled sadly. “No, they will obviously assume that Nicholas has the information, and possibly Keldering. If they choose to act, it will be as a coordinated, multilayered operation that only something as large as the ESDC—and, speaking honestly, some of the other less-official organizations it is connected to—could manage. The goal will be to eradicate
all
first-hand data, including whatever authenticated data you have sent to Nick. As the old saw goes, ‘three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead’; they also have the absolute certainty that Nicholas Glendale
cannot
have told more than a few people of the truth, because otherwise that truth would have leaked, not merely become suspected.”

“They couldn’t get away with—”

Maddie waved her hand abruptly, cutting A.J. off, then sighed, leaning back in the seat of the otherwise-empty cabin of
Munin
. “A.J., of course they
can’t
get away with it, not in the long run. They’d have to have everything fall absolutely their way, all the way down the line, and miss nothing.

“But they will be
desperate
by the time we are getting in-system. Men like Osterhoudt
will not
go to jail. They will take
any
risk if they see the danger looming close. And they will convince themselves that if they can get rid of the two damning pieces of evidence—the survivors and the wrecks—then despite any circumstantial evidence no one will try to bring it home to them, because the potential loss is greater than the gain.”

The others were silent for several seconds. Then the General nodded decisively. “You are completely correct, Agent Fathom. I know such people. Fitzgerald himself was such a man; there was no true way he could have gotten away with his deception in the end, yet he was still proceeding on the assumption that somehow he
could
. And he was, I am afraid, far brighter than those who hired him. Therefore…”

“Yes, General. We will all begin looking through the
Odin
for these trapdoors,” Horst said.

“And taking them
out
,” seconded Mia.

“But not
completely
,” said A.J., with a devilish glance at Maddie.

As the others looked at him in puzzlement, Madeline could not restrain a grin. “You have gotten to know me too well, Mr. Baker.”

“Evil knows evil, Ms Fathom-Buckley,” he said. “If they’re going to be stupid, far be it from us to keep them from
proving
it.”

“Ha!” Horst exclaimed, as both the General and Mia began smiling as well. “We will leave the access protocols and spoof the control reaction, yes? Make them
think
they can still control
Odin
—”

“—and record the whole attempt,” Madeline confirmed. “In the true principles of your favorite aikido, A.J.; we will allow them to firmly and finally convict themselves.”

Chapter 19.

“You know,” Jackie said, triggering a
Cancel and clear
on her workspace, “we’ve been wasting just a
ludicrous
amount of time on this hookup.”

Horst scratched his head. “But we need to have the access to
Nebula Storm
, and it has to spin—”

“Yes,” Jackie interrupted, “but we’re going about it all
wrong
, probably because we were trying originally to figure out how to make it work with
Nebula Storm
and
Munin
, and then trying to make the connect to the regular airlock on
Nebula Storm
.”

“So what’s your solution?” Mia asked reasonably.

“Go back to what the
Odin
was originally designed for. If we stick the
Nebula Storm
in the center of the body along the main axis…” she paused.

She only had to wait a second before Horst struck his own forehead with a muttered German imprecation. “Of course. Rotate
all of Odin
at the same speed, and we don’t need any special connectors; we just integrate the
Nebula Storm
’s forward end into the ship and we can enter and leave as though
Nebula Storm
were just one more section of
Odin
.”

“And we can leave everything extended, as long as we can clear off any ragged pieces trailing around the area.”

Mia was smiling now. “Oh, this will be
so
much easier, Jackie! I can’t believe we didn’t see this before. Yes, and there should be very little to clear away; remember that the forward portion of
Odin
was jettisoned on purpose, and the separation charges designed very carefully.”

Horst checked the uplink. “Ah, signal is back to full; we have emerged from behind Jupiter. Brett, this is Horst, are you receiving me there?”

The round-trip delay now, at their maximum communication distance from Europa, was close to eight seconds, so Horst had to enforce patience while he waited; as they’d done this many times now, he was getting good at having conversations with significant time delay built in. It was only about fifteen seconds before he heard the reply. “Horst! Good to hear from you all. Yes, receiving you fine now.”

“Glad to hear from you too. We trust that everyone is doing well there?”

“Good enough.
Athena
’s almost done filling
Nebula Storm
’s tanks, and I guess we’ll have to start dumping the water until you guys get back for a refuel. Helen’s been happily digging away in the ice by remote control, and we’ve laid out a centrifuge area and started putting together the components we can for that. How’re you doing?”

“We’ve got
Munin
loaded with the pieces you guys specified for the centrifuge.”

“What about power?” A.J. interjected. “Did you—”

“Solved,” Jackie said. “There’s a spare reactor for the low-G rover we have on board
Munin
, so we’re sending that down to drive the centrifuge. That way you can keep the rover intact.”

“Excellent,” A.J. said.

“How about you, Petra?” asked Jackie.

“I,” the British doctor answered, “have managed to get every duplicate piece of medical equipment into
Munin
as well.” While the others had done the larger engineering work, Petra Masters had been carefully attending to the medical aspects of the trip. “Low-G compensation drugs have been loaded—I am currently working out the best schedule for testing each of us to verify whether any of us have unsupportable reactions to the medication, as we have no true emergency facilities.”

“Take your time, Petra,” Joe said. “No one’s in any hurry to be a guinea pig if we don’t have to be.”

“I know,” Petra said. “On the other hand, however, this is an ideal time to perform some preliminary field trials, and was after all the reason the drugs were sent along in the first place.”

“Oh-oh.” Joe’s voice was so grimly dour that Jackie couldn’t help but giggle. “Now she’s going to experiment on us in the name of
Science!
”

“You need anything, Jackie?”

“Actually, yes, Brett—I realized we were all being so stupid with the linkup design. I want you to do a model and design trial assuming we’re going to dock the
Nebula Storm
forward-points first along the axis of
Odin
.”

The pause was somewhat longer than the expected 8 seconds. “Along the…oh,
I
get it!”

“Yeah, I guess we
were
all being kinda dim,” A.J. commented. “That’ll work a lot better. I guess we figure on embedding up about halfway to the main lock, then run a corridor tube out to the lock.”

“Something like that. And then we rotate everything at the proper speed.
Odin
was designed for that anyway.”

“She
was,
” agreed Hohenheim’s deep voice cautiously, “but I remind you that my ship has been put through a very great deal in the last months, and we should be very careful about forcing her to rotate in that fashion again until we have surveyed the entirety of the critical support structure. We do not wish to have half of the
Odin
suddenly send itself hurtling into space.”

“No fear on that,” Brett answered quickly (or as quickly as time-delay would allow). “With A.J.’s sensors, my modeling, and
Odin
’s own PHM systems, we can make very sure.”

“Any additional problems caused by this approach rather than the other?”

That was Madeline
, Jackie thought, and then considered the question. “Umm…I don’t
think
so. The only real problem I can think of offhand is one of the same ones we would have in the more complicated linkage designs—attaching stuff securely to that damn Vault material in the hull. It doesn’t weld easy at all, and I don’t think anyone’s found a glue that sticks worth a damn, either.”

“I’ll model some alternatives,” Brett said. “I’m thinking of just running clamps out to the bases of the four habitat extensions, and putting a ring behind them. It’d be a pain on EVA for whoever’s doing it, but I think it’d work. We’re not talking about terribly high accelerations in any direction, so structural integrity shouldn’t be a big problem.”

“Just make sure you model extreme cases,” Jackie reminded him. “I know, that sounds like an obvious thing, but we won’t get any do-overs on this. So modeling…oh, I dunno, say what happens if one of the habitat anchors gives way and suddenly we’re rotating with only three of four connected? That’s the kind of thing we have to be ready for.”

“You’re right. And believe me, I’ll make sure all of you get to see the models I’ve done and let me know if I’ve forgotten anything.”

“Good enough,” Maddie said.

“Hey, Helen,” Jackie said. “I had a thought while we were around the other side this time and wondered if you had an answer for it.”

“Hold on, Jackie…All right, I’ve got the Locusts on hold. They’re excavating something else for me now. Go ahead.”

“Well, I know there’s been all sorts of debate about aliens before we discovered Bemmie, and a lot of the arguments were about how and why they’d bother to come here,” she said slowly.”But it occurred to me that now we’ve got a better explanation.

“Maybe Bemmie
came
from Europa. That’s why they were here. They didn’t have to travel
to
the solar system because they’re just as native to it as we are.”

The airwaves were silent for several moments before several voices started to speak at once. “Hadn’t thought of—” “Hell, that’s an idea, I—” “No, I don’t think—”

“EVERYONE,” the amplified transmission of Hohenheim came, momentarily squelching the others, “let us speak one at a time. Dr. Sutter, the question was addressed to you.”

“It’s certainly possible as far as I am concerned,” Helen said after a short pause. “Since the ocean here is possibly very like Earth’s, and both Earth and Europa must have formed at similar times, there were billions of years for Europan life to evolve. No reason that I can think of that Bemmie couldn’t have gained sentience and sapience a few million years earlier than we did.”

“And that would sure explain their presence,” Dan said with some excitement. “They got to their surface, saw all the other planets, and Earth would have looked like a beacon to them, I think, close enough in that you didn’t have to melt your way to the surface to see the stars.”

“It has an appeal of simplicity about it in many ways,” agreed Hohenheim. “But I believe I heard some dissent on your end, Maddie?”

“I think that was A.J., though I have some questions on the idea. A.J.?”

The sensor expert’s voice held the slight edge of pride that it usually did when he was announcing an insight. “Sorry, Jackie, but no way. And there’s a reason for that which any engineer would know—or any classical student, probably.”

All right, what’s he getting at?

“I’m not following you, A.J.,” Joe said after a moment. “At least, I’m not seeing any objection to this that’s anywhere near as bad as the ones for them travelling light-years.”

Got it!
She felt slightly better, having just figured it out instead of having to hear A.J. explain to her the vital hole in the theory. “No chance for Prometheus, is that your point?”

“Oh, excellent, you got both references.” His rejoinder wasn’t sarcastic—one thing about A.J., he liked people to figure things out.

“What do you mean?” Helen asked.

Maddie answered. “It’s the first objection that came to me, too. The key to civilization as we know it really rests on two things, and one of them is the control of fire. How do you refine metal, manufacture a spaceship or tools or do any of a thousand other things when you can’t build a fire, smelt ore, and so on because you’re always underwater?”