Cabinet to the south side of the dance floor. “This is a pirated signal, and no one knows we’re here.” They peered over the edge at the South Pacific nine thousand meters below their feet.
“There,” Cabinet said, “and there.” Outlines of the six country-sized natpac panasonic pens were laid over the ocean, along with atmospheric metadata. “We need hydro data too, and water toxicity,” the mentar said. More layers appeared showing currents and temperatures, chemical analyses and O2 levels. Cabinet continued. “Eleanor’s last coherent thought was to order Arrow to cut open the pens and drive the fish out.”
“But we’ll lose them in the open ocean,” Koyabe said. “Won’t they scatter into separate schools?”
There was a shout of dismay from the bank of wall frames. On the ocean below, a purple splotch, like a spreading ink stain, appeared off the eastern coast of Natpac #3. Fortunately, the currents were pushing it north, and it looked like it would only graze the pen.
“What is that?” Koyabe said.
“Still analyzing,” said a staffer.
“Captain, have your team work up probable attack vectors. Put someone on ways to herd fish. Dr. Strohmeyer, are you ready?”
A woman’s voice answered. “I said it would be the fishes. I said the honey-bees were no good.”
“Yes, yes, and everyone knows you were right. Now, Marilyn, are you ready to begin transfer?”
“Almost. We have satellite coverage; my gear is spinning up. What medium should we use?”
“You have to ask? We’ll keep this fish to fish. Why tempt fate?” To Meewee she added, “Each competing memory technology has its champion. Dr. Strohmeyer is our fish czar.”
Meewee said, “You have panasonics here?”
“Better, a completely new species. I’ll show them to you later.”
Cabinet pointed to Natpac #3. “Arrow is in position to cut the fish loose. Is it safe to proceed?”
“No,” Koyabe said decisively. “Not until we know what that spill is. We can’t risk letting infected fish loose to endanger other pens.”
As she spoke, another purple splotch appeared on the ocean surface, this one on a direct collision course with Natpac #6. And a third landed in the center of Natpac #5.
“What is that stuff, people?” Koyabe said, but no one had an answer.
Cabinet said, “You don’t need to worry about cross-contamination because all of the pens are being attacked.”
A frame opened next to Natpac #3 and displayed an anatomical diagram of what looked like an odd cross between a tadpole and a crab. “That’s it!” one of the response team members said.
Captain Benson read the specs. “The spills are concentrations of sea lice.”
“Sea lice?” Meewee said. “As in the biological pest, or some new godless mech?”
“The realbody parasite,” Benson replied. “Textrahine C.”
“What harm can they do?”
“Don’t underestimate sea lice, Bishop Meewee,” Koyabe said. “Even the natural variety can bedevil deep ocean fish to death. And the ‘C’ strain are super lice, developed during the Outrage as a weapon of bioterror. They spread quickly and can kill fish the size of panasonics in a few hours.”
Cabinet said, “How many hours?”
“Dr. Strohmeyer?”
The absent scientists said, “Sixteen to eighteen.”
“And how long will it take you to transfer Eleanor’s attention units once you have started?”
“Thirty to forty hours per pen. I can do two pens simultaneously.”
Cabinet said, “Can we track Eleanor’s fish once they’ve dispersed to open water?”
“Yes, but that means so can anyone else. Can you see them yet?”
On the ocean below, all the natpac pens except #5 turned a bright yellow tint. A team member said, “That’s Dr. Strohmeyer’s telemetry lock.”
“Yes, Marilyn, we can see them,” Koyabe said.
“Here is my recommendation,” Cabinet said. “Forget pen #5; she’s not there. Treat the other pens with anti-lice drugs to slow down the infestation. Assume that all of the pens will be attacked, and open them and disperse the fish to slow the rate of spread. Display the infestation spread and fish dispersal and transfer the affected fish first. We can stay ahead of this.”
Meewee nodded as he listened to Cabinet’s plan. It sounded about right. He noticed the others looking expectantly at him, and he remembered that he was LOG 1. “Are there any objections or counterproposals?” he said. Hearing none, he said, “Do it.” Almost at once Natpac #3 was leaking streams of yellow dots from all sides. Soon, all of the pens were leaking except #5.
WITH A SWIPE of Koyabe’s hand, their perch on the Stardust dance floor on top of the world changed to a concrete room with dim lighting. “Don’t bump anything,” Koyabe warned him. “The Mem Lab uses two-way vurt. Anything you touch here gets touched there.”
“I’ll be careful,” Meewee promised.
Strohmeyer and five others in lab togs were at one side of the room coaxing a bank of instruments into service. Strohmeyer glanced at them and said, “Another fifteen minutes.” She was a large, disheveled woman, the opposite of the trim and neat Koyabe.
“Don’t let us disturb you,” Koyabe replied. “I’m showing our LOG the memory medium.” She led Meewee to the side of a large, rectangular steel pool filled with water. He looked in and was startled to see several dozen ghastly babies staring back at him from under the surface. Grim, ghoulish babies with grayish skin. He took a step back in surprise, and the babies turned as one and splashed away to deeper water at the other end of the pool.
They were not babies but fish, fish with huge, bulging foreheads and large round eyes.
“Don’t be alarmed,” Koyabe said. “Their curiosity is matched only by their timidity.”
“What are they?”
“We call them brainfish. They’re about five hundred generations beyond the panasonics.” As they talked, the braver brainfish of the group returned to Meewee’s side of the pool to watch him. “You can pet them,” Koyabe said. “Go ahead.”
The last thing Meewee wanted to do was pet fish, but he held his hand over the water surface until a brainfish rose to meet it. Maybe it was the poor tactile quality of two-way vurt, but it felt like petting wet sandpaper.
DR. STROHMEYER INITIATED the attention unit migration and joined the others on the dance floor. Now it was a waiting game. Oblivious Stardust patrons danced and dined as twilight fell, and new icons and glyphs covered the vast watery display below: cutter locations, probable enemy craft sightings, infestation spread, migration rate and more. In the starry sky were tables and charts and views of panicky panasonics from inside the pens. The sea around the pens was filling up with yellow dots as the pens emptied.
“How many panasonics are there?” Meewee said.
Strohmeyer replied, “About sixty million.”
“Sixty million, and you’ll be able to stuff them all into a few brainfish?”
“Well, there’s a lot of redundancy, and most of the panasonics haven’t even been imprinted, and many have only a few attention units, enough for a single engram. Problem is, we don’t know which is which and have to do them all.”
DR. KOYABE RETURNED to the Command Post. Meewee hadn’t noticed her departure, but he noticed her return — she was wearing makeup and, under her lab togs, a dress. “I thought I’d show you to the commissary, Bishop. Are you hungry?”
Meewee had to pause and ask himself if he was. Yes, he was very hungry. Before they left the Command Post, Koyabe dealt with a few more calls. A half hour later she said, “We’re starting some bodies for her. Do you want to see that before we dine?”
Dine? He had thought he’d grab a sandwich and bring it back. Koyabe swiped the interface, and they were transported to yet another laboratory module. “Remember,” Koyabe said, “two-way vurt. Don’t trip.”
