Kandara guessed Emilja was the leader of the Utopial’s technology development faction. She was the practical one, wrestling equipment into obedience, mirror-twinned to Jaru’s philosophic dreams. “An honor to meet you,” Kandara said.
Emilja gave her a sly grin of acknowledgment and sat at the head of the rock-slab table. The pale, redheaded man who’d accompanied her sat on her left.
“Callum Hepburn,” Emilja said formally. “Our von Neumann project technology strategist.”
“She means troubleshooter,” Callum said amicably.
“Has there been any trouble?” Kandara asked.
“Not on the scale that hit Naima’s telomere production,” he said. “But there have been more glitches out on the Bremble stations than usual. Of course, defining ‘usual’ here is difficult in itself. All our industrial systems are under constant development as we evolve them up to the von Neumann mono-machine ideal. Some months everything goes smoothly; others we get overrun by problems. This current batch might be normal, or they might not. We’ll need to give our files and routines a thorough audit.”
“I’d like permission to install monitor routines in Onysko’s networks, and on the Bremble industrial stations,” Tyle said.
“If that’s what you need,” Emilja said. “Go ahead.”
“What happens if you find evidence of tampering?” Callum asked.
“It depends on when it occurs. If it’s historical, then we’ll pass it on to you. Hopefully, you’ll be able to assess and compensate for whatever damage there’s been. And if it’s current—” Tyle glanced over at Kandara. “We believe we can track the access point.”
“And I’ll deal with that for you,” she said.
Callum gave her an uneasy look. “I think rendition to Zagreus would be more appropriate.”
“We’ve had that discussion in senior council, Callum,” Emilja said levelly. “As a result, Investigator Martinez has been hired. I believe she is even more necessary now that we know the full extent of the sabotage against us. If you’re going to attack Utopial society, this is where to do it; the severity of the other attacks may be a diversion.”
“It’s your conscience at stake, not mine.”
“Thank you,” she said coldly. “Investigator?”
“Yes?”
“If it is possible to apprehend one or more of this team, I would like you to do so.”
“I understand.”
“But not at risk to yourself.”
“I wouldn’t expose myself to unnecessary risk; that has a habit of compromising my mission.”
“Very well. But I am very curious about who is behind this. The level of planning and the commitment to damage our entire culture is one which I find profoundly disturbing. I fear it won’t be resolved simply by you eliminating the current threat.”
“I think you’re right,” Kandara said. “Do you have any idea who might have launched this?”
“I believe it highly unlikely to be a globalPAC or even a multistellar corporation. We’ve had our ideological disagreements with them; we still do. But this…No. They would understand that as soon as we uncovered their culpability, I would strike back.”
“Also, generating physical conflict is not on the globalPAC agenda,” Callum said. “Quite the opposite. Zagreus rendition was their idea in the first place.” He grimaced. “I know that for a fact. They stamp down heavily against anyone who uses violence, especially political violence. And that’s what this is.”
“How long will it take to set up your routines?” Emilja asked Tyle.
“Hopefully within a day,” sie replied. “There are a lot of networks, especially on Bremble. But the Bureau has allocated me additional G8Turings.”
“Very well,” Emilja said. “Keep me informed.”
—
The team set up in an office on the ninth floor of the Gloweth residency, looking down the length of the habitat. Their desks had a full range of network access nodes and projectors, and there was a drink dispenser in the corner that produced a great hot chocolate. It still lacked the kind of professionalism Kandara was accustomed to, but she had to admit it was an improvement to sitting around a kitchen table. They’d also acquired additional support from Onysko’s small police force—five officers specializing in network security.
Tyle supervised the review of Onysko’s projects, examining networked files for the kind of discrepancies they’d found before. It took fifteen hours.
“I’ve got something,” sie told Kandara. “There’s a materials science team in one of the astro-engineering offices up here; they’re running a development project for space suits. It researches active magnetic polymers that will deflect cosmic radiation—a layer of that in a space suit will weigh a great deal less than the carbon and metal layers we’re using now.”
“Okay, I can see that having some weapons capability,” Kandara said.
“It looks like some of their key files were altered. We’re running a comparison with deep cached copies to see how many, but it fits the profile.”
“What about the access point?” Kandara asked.