Sarah Zettel - Fool's War

But it doesn’t have to be that much more.

Dobbs crossed the room and stood right next to the desk. She waited until Lipinski let his bright eyes focus on her again. “First, I want you to understand why I do what I do, and why I’ve made the decisions I’ve made. I do it so that Kerensk never happens again. The Guild works, Lipinski. Since its inception there have been less than fifty full break outs. Less than fifty in two hundred years. We track, we monitor, we watch and we haul anything that’s about to break free out of the networks. Sometimes we make difficult choices because we need more information, or have to move fast. But we do it, I do it, so there won’t be any more panics and lost colonies.” She caught his gaze and held it. “I don’t expect you to believe this, but I need you to understand it’s what I believe, what I have always believed.” What I still believe. I do.

Lipinski searched her eyes for a long moment. “All right,” he said at last. “I believe you believe it.”

She let out another sigh. “Thank you. I wanted you to understand how hard it is for me to say what’s coming next.” She braced herself against all his possible responses. “I want you to help me break into the Fool’s database to see if we can find out who might have stolen the Farther Kingdom AI.”

Lipinski drew back as far as the chair would allow. “You’re not serious.” He glanced quickly away. “That was stupid, of course you’re serious,” he told the bunk. He looked back at her. “Do you think there’ll be something in there?”

She nodded. “We’re very paranoid record keepers. If a Fool did this, there’ll be something in there for us to find. Specifically, I want to know if there’s anybody who’s not where they’re supposed to be.”

Lipinski gave her a strange sideways look. “Wouldn’t it be easier for you to just, um… ” he gestured towards her right ear.

She shook her head. “Aside from the fact that I’ve really overdone my on line time in the past few days, station security might be specifically tagged for my signal. They’ll be expecting me. You, on the other hand, shouldn’t even be able to find the front door, never mind get through it.” She let her hands twist together. “So they won’t be particularly watching for a non-Guild signal from Pasadena. At least not past a certain point. Also, considering where you come from, the Guild Masters won’t think I’d take the chance of telling you any of this. They think I’d expect you to just panic if you knew what was happening.”

He dropped his gaze to his own hands, which were still rubbing back and forth on his trouser legs. “Can’t see why they’d think that.”

She allowed herself a small smile. “Me either. You’re so calm and rational on the subject of live AIs.”

“What if a Fool didn’t do this?” he asked the floor.

“Then we need to know that too.”

When Lipinski looked up again, his face was utterly frank. “Look, Dobbs, I don’t like this. But then, I haven’t liked anything about this run since I found out about Marcus Tully’s binary boards.” He lifted his hands off his thighs and ran them through his hair. “And it just keeps getting worse.” For the first time there was a soft, hopeless sound in his voice. Dobbs tried hard not to grit her teeth and only partially succeeded.

“What I want to know is what you’re going to do if we do find something?”

She spread her hands. “I don’t know. It depends on what we find and where it is. I’m hoping I can take it to the Guild Masters. If I can’t… ” Her back and shoulders knotted. “If I can’t then I’m going to have to take it to the banks and the Solar System authorities.”

Lipinski was watching her very closely. She found it difficult not to squirm. “And there’s nobody in the Guild you trust enough to tap the database for you?”

“There’s one or two, but… ” She waved her hand absently. “If we’re caught, there’s nothing they can do, or rather nothing they will do to you, or anybody else aboard Pasadena .” Not without running a horrible risk. “But there’s plenty they can do to me. At the very least I’ll lose my Master’s rank for good. I can’t, I won’t, ask anybody else to run that chance.”

Lipinski tapped the side of his fist against the desktop silently and rapidly. “Well.” He picked up his pen. “We can’t do anything from here.” He unfolded himself, tucked the pen in his pocket and strode past her to the hatch. “Coming, Fool?”

A real, heartfelt grin spread across Dobbs’ face. “Right behind you, Houston.”

In the data hold, Lipinski dismissed Odel with three words and a hard look. When his relief retreated, Lipinski sealed the hatch and set the entry light glowing red.

His expression was all business as he sat down at Station One.

“So, what’s out here?” The touch of his pen lit the boards up. A spidery diagram of red, white and green lines drew itself across the main screen. The green lines were collected in a small bundle that sent short fingers into the big, loosely knit cluster of white threads. The long strands of red vanished off the side of the screen.

“Bank lines.” Lipinski traced the fat red lines with his forefinger. “Us.” He tapped the tidy green net. “You guys.” He tapped the white. “Or at least, what you’ll let anybody see of you guys.” He frowned at the screen and then glanced up at her. “But I don’t really have to explain any of this to you, do I?”

Dobbs gave him a small smile. “Not really.” She leaned closer, trying not to be acutely aware of the heat radiating off his skin. She forced her attention to the scanty web of straggling white lines. “That’s not even ten percent of the Guild Net,” she told him. “And actually, I’m surprised you can see that much.”

“Trade secret. A concept I’m sure you’re familiar with.”

Dobbs winced and clutched her shoulder. “A hit, a hit. She’s losing air,” she said, more from habit than for performance sake. She didn’t take her gaze off the screen. “And, of course none of the gateways are on there.” She lowered her hand and drummed her fingers thoughtfully on the edge of the board. “Can you show me what you’re using to get this map?”

“There goes my trade secret.” Lipinski wrote out the recall command. A searcher blueprint appeared on one of the secondary screens.

Dobbs studied the objects and connectors. Unconsciously, she tapped the board as if trying to reach through it to the schematic beneath. She stopped as soon as she realized that was what she was trying to do. She wanted to pick this thing up, to wrap her understanding around it and know it in an instant. She stuffed her hand into her pocket and forced herself to drink it in with just her eyes.

“Not half bad, for a beginner.” The remark earned her an angry, unguarded snort from Lipinski. Actually, the searcher was neatly built; solid, compact and comprehensive. It just didn’t go far enough. “You need to attach three more runners,” She pulled out her pen and marked the spots with points of light on the board. “Here, here, and here. Then you need an anchor and chain, here.” She sketched in the construction. “And a whole herd of sniffers out here.” She speckled the outer edge of the blueprint. “And you need to spread it out. Keep the objects as far apart as possible.”

Lipinski frowned. “It’ll be too big. They’ll spot it in a second.”

“They’re looking for speed. Flashes will attract security. If we trickle our searcher in there and go as slow as possible, we might just get by. Especially since they won’t be looking for you.” She twirled her pen through her fingers. “You couldn’t possibly know the way in.”