The strangest thing about this eavesdropped message, as opposed to the one Maia had read earlier, was that it seemed directed not at some random person who might later pick it up, as she had picked up the game board, but at a specific individual. Using resold games to send notes "in a bottle" could have been but a side venture. A backup plan. These nightly clicking episodes seemed aimed at something more immediate, as if the prisoner intended her messages to get through much sooner and more directly.
Maia recalled the metal plate in the wall. Sparks in the night.
The place must be wired for telephone, or some low-level commlink, Maia speculated. Having never been in a sanctuary before, she had no reason to be surprised by this, yet she was. Maybe men demand it in the design before they'll move in. I wonder what they need it for?
Whatever the cable's original purpose, the other prisoner was clearly using it for something . . . sending electrical pulses. But to where? As far as Maia could figure, the wires weren't attached to anything.
A possibility struck her. Is the other prisoner using the wire as … an antenna? Trying to send a radio message? Maia knew in abstract that you generated radio waves by pushing electrons rapidly back and forth down a wire. But household comm sets and the ones used aboard ships — countless generations removed from their ancient origins — were grown in solid blocks out of vats, and sold in units smaller than the palm of your hand. Probably only a scattering of individuals in universities understood how they were, made anymore.
She must be a savant. They're holding a savant prisoner here!
Maia recalled the evening in Lanargh, when she and Leie had watched the news broadcast, and heard the mysterious offer of a "reward for information." Maybe it was about this!
I've got to get in touch with her. But how?
She decided. First I'll have to write a message.
There was no question of doing it the way the savant had, by coding starting conditions the Game of Life rules would turn into written words after a thousand complex gyrations. And with a little contemplation, Maia realized she didn't have to. After all, the trick of sending a message in a bottle, or a message by radio, involved coding it so that, hopefully, only the right recipient would decipher it. But Maia wasn't trying to communicate with anyone beyond these sanctuary walls. She could send regular block letters!
With the stylus, she blackened squares on the game board until it read
FELLOW PRISONER!
HEARD CLICKS IN WIRE
MY NAME IS MAIA
Regarding what she'd written, she reconsidered. The first line was obvious. As for the second, perhaps the savant didn't know she was making noise elsewhere in the citadel, each time she transmitted, but it would be apparent once Maia's reply got through.
There was another reason to simplify. She must translate her message into rows of dots and dashes, unraveling the words like peeling layers off a cake. Three lines of letters took twenty-one rows of game squares to produce, each fifty-nine squares wide, she calculated a total of 1,239 intersections that had to be labeled black or white with an on or off pulse. Over a thousand! True, the other prisoner had sent even more, but not with such long pauses as Maia's approach called for. Extend a pause for five beats or more and the recipient will surely lose count. Finally, she settled on a much simpler first effort.
I'M MAIA I'M MAIA I'M MAIA
It was still 413 pulses long, after the rows were unwrapped into a linear chain. That seemed manageable, though, especially since it would be rhythmical.
Now how to send it.
She had considered pounding on the walls, or perhaps the drainpipe..But those sounds probably wouldn't carry far. If they did, it would alert the guards.
I'll have to do it the same way, she concluded. Through the wire.
There was just one possible source for the electricity required, and one mistake would cut off her only contact with the outside world. Maia didn't hesitate. Gingerly, she turned the Life set over and pried open the cover to the battery case.
She decided to wait until this evening's midnight transmission was over. Huddled under unwrapped curtains, she watched the savant's message create a staccato of sparks against the wall, verifying that it was the same as before. The series of clicking arcs stopped at the usual time, leaving her to peer through dim moonlight, cast by the slit window. Expecting this, Maia had practiced her moves earlier. Still, it took several awkward tries to grasp loose wires extracted from the back of the game set and bring them to the plate in the wall.
Before her lay the message she planned to send. Maia had used big, blocky squares and spaces, intended to be read even by dim light.
Well, here goes, she thought.
