John Wright - The Phoenix Exultant

The three of them all leaned slightly back, exchanging puzzled glances.

And Daphne said brightly, "Yoo-hoo! Can I change my guess about who is acting weird ... ? I pick Harrier Sophotech."

Atkins said, "Sir, this really seems like a waste of everyone's time. Could you just get to the point without drawing it out... ?"

But it was Phaethon who suddenly spoke up.

"The main million-channel cable leading from North America to Northern Asia runs right under that area."

Daphne and Atkins turned and stared at Phaethon.

Daphne nudged Atkins in the ribs. "It's spreading. Now Phaethon's doing it."

Phaethon continued, "But the whole cable structure is surrounded by a polystructral alloy mesh, with informata placed at every mesh-point, programmed to redesign and reformat the cable housing to prevent any possible outside interference. There is simply no way anyone could break the mesh to tap into the cable. Except at a join-box, a big one, where a branch reaches up toward the surface." Phaethon turned, and said to Daphne: "I know all about these cable designs, because I had to study the effects of the tidal changes my Lunar Orbital corrections might cause on large-scale structures. A cable that long and that big is vulnerable to crustal tides."

Daphne said, "I really hope this is going to turn out to be important, or, at least, interesting, because I still haven't gotten my chance to tell you about what Aurelian Sophotech said to me in the Taj Mahal."

Atkins spoke up. "Contemplationaries situated near the Arctic Circle are usually large domes, but they can't use ring-city point-to-point systems because of their location so far from the equator, and because of the atmospheric conditions,"

Daphne looked at Atkins with dismay. "Now you're doing it!"

Atkins said, "All I mean is that I happen to know that arctic contemplation houses have deep-root cables to lead down underground and merge with any main cables in the area. Because contemplation houses in general have to be able to handle almost any level of thought exchange, there are usually no gateways or barriers securing their connecting link to the main cables. It's a weak spot."

Daphne blinked. "Weak spot?"

Atkins said, "In other words, if you were going to introduce a data convulsion, a death worm, or a virus, into a main cable, such as, for example, if you were going to sabotage the medical dream-coffin system and kill thousands of innocent and helpless people, you'd pick the area beneath a contemplation house for your insertion point."

Daphne demanded impatiently: "And why in the world would I want to kill thousands of innocent and helpless people?"

"I'm not saying you would, ma'am. But it's something to think about, and run scenarios on. Sort of interesting, actually, once you find a weak spot in a system, such as where a contemplation house feeds into a main cable, to figure out how many people you can off how quickly, and what their possible retaliations would be."

Daphne murmured to Phaethon, "You're right. No wonder people get nervous around him. He's weird."

The ring on her finger chirped in a cheerful voice: "Taking an overstimulation refreshment requires the user to superactivate his Middle Dreaming circuit, shut down his inhibitors, and open up all his sense-filter files to any and all sensations!"

Daphne said, "Oh no! Not you, too!"

Phaethon said, "The mannequin control lines are usually stored near the surface of the main-cable web, since the core axis is reserved for polyphotonic noumenal devoted lines, which need more insulation. And that's where the architect would usually place the interruption sensors. If you were tapping into the line, you could get into the shallower mannequin lines without triggering those sensors."

Atkins said, "When you make a drop onto a hostile planet, you land near the poles. Not only would the planetary magnetic fields tend to mask your vehicle signature during the drop, but the laws of orbital mechanics require that most of your target planet's launch traffic and orbital traffic is near the equator. Where most of the traffic is, is where more traffic-control radar is. No one watches the north pole."

Daphne said, "Athenian architects avoided the use of mortar. Instead, they trimmed their stones to an extremely accurate fit and bonded the marble blocks together with I-shaped clamps. Second-Era classical buildings have scars and pock-marks where men of later ages chiseled out these clamps to melt down and sell the metal."

Phaethon said, "I beg your pardon ... ?"

Atkins said, "Come again, ma'am ... ?"

They were both staring at her.

Daphne smiled a winning smile, and shrugged, and said, "I was beginning to feel left out, that's all."

The image of Harrier Sophotech turned keen eyes on her. "Actually, Miss Daphne, you disappoint me. You are the one here who is familiar with the intrigues from spy-romances. I thought the pattern of clues would make sense to you. Why, for example, would Mr. Shopworthy lean on his left elbow rather than his right?"

Daphne shrugged. "Well, he wouldn't. Not normally. It would be too awkward. The only reason why you would wear one of those clumsy hand-extension things is to let you manipulate controls which you can't manipulate by a thought-to-wire command. The contact points are at the elbow because the rest of the glove, from about here up, extends into dream-space. The only time you'd want to push it up against anything, would be if you were touching a contact-point and trying to bring in signals from somewhere else, and feed them through your glove into dreamspace. And ..."

Harrier prompted, "And why would any person relaxing under a sensory overload be acting in the mentality? Would he normally be afraid of accidentally sending out nonconfirmed thoughts, making wrong connections, or losing his reality level?"

"It would have to be another part of his mind, insulated from the first part." And then Daphne's face lit up: "I've got it now! In an episode I saw, Weng chi-Ang Moriarty, the hundredth lineal descendant of Fa So Loee and Professor Moriarty, and the last member of the Invisible Empire of the Si Fan, had set up this wild card from the Middle Dreaming on a hillside where he knew a bird-watcher was going to be looking with binoculars, so that, the moment the victim saw the card, a ghost would download into his personal thoughtspace. And then the ghost committed crimes while the bird-watcher was otherwise occupied. It was a pretty good story, because the bird-watcher was trying to find the criminals, and he never thought about himself as a suspect. He also did sensory overloads. The overload relaxation covered up the extra signaltraffic, because overloads flood all your personal channels anyway. And ..."

Harrier said, "I think the Silent Ones saw the same episode."

"Oh my heavens! You've got to be kidding! That was just a show! People don't really have things like that happen to them! I mean, not real people ..."

Harrier said: "The card the Neptunian spy dropped from the Cernous Roc used to introduce a ghost into Mr. Shopworthy only had to be somewhere, anywhere, on the north slope of the New Idea Mountain-sculpture. During his daily over-stimulation, his sense-filter is tuned to maximum, and set to accept all channels and all stimulations. And he simply looks out over the landscape. Under normal circumstances, it is a perfectly safe thing to do."

Phaethon said, "Am I right in guessing that the times Mr. Shopworthy was sitting and enjoying his overloads coincided with, first, just after my hearing before the Curia, and, second, just before the Deep Ones' performance at Lake Victoria?"

Daphne said, "We're talking about Scaramouche, aren't we? The guy running that mannequin doesn't know he's running it."

Atkins turned, looked up at the night sky, frowning. Then he raised his finger and pointed. "I can get a fix through some triangulation satellites. And the orbital weapons sniper platform can angle the beam somewhat, so I'll only have to cut through a small cord of planet to hit the target. Which is good, because most people who armor themselves against space attacks put their armor and deflection grids overhead. No one expects a beam weapon to drill through the Earth and shoot you up the tail. Also, nothing much in Alaska. Should minimize collateral damage."