quite unlike her usual analytical precision. “But what does that have to do with enabling localizers in Hammerfest?”
“With localizer support in Hammerfest, my snoops could do constant, fine-grain analysis—correlate the net traffic with exactly what is happening physically. It’s… it’s a scandal that our weakest security is in the place where we need the strongest.”
“Hmm.” He looked back into Ritser’s eyes. As a child, Tomas Nau had learned an important rule: Whatever else, never lie to yourself. Throughout history, self-deception had ruined great men from Helmun Dire to Pham Nuwen. Be honest: He reallyreally wanted the lake that Qiwi had shown him under Hammerfest. With such a park, he would have made something of this squalor, a splendor that the Qeng Ho rarely exceeded even in civilized systems. All that was no excuse to break security—but maybe his self-denial was itself making things worse.Take a different tack: Whoappears to be pushing this? Ritser Brughel was awfully enthusiastic about it. He must not be underestimated. Less directly, Qiwi had created this dilemma: “What about Qiwi Lisolet, Ritser? What do your analysts say about her?”
Something glittered in Ritser’s eyes. He still held a homicidal hatred for Qiwi. “We both know how fast she can twig the truth—close surveillance is more important than ever. But at the moment, she’s absolutely, totally clean. She doesn’t love you, but her admiration for you is nearly as strong as love. She is a masterpiece, sir.”
Qiwi was twigging about every other Watch now. But her last scrubbing was very recent—and extending the localizer coverage would keep her under an even tighter watch. Nau thought it over for a moment more, then nodded. “Okay, Vice-Podmaster, let’s bring the localizers to Hammerfest.”
Of course, the Qeng Ho localizers were already aboard Hammerfest. The dustlike motes spread on air currents, stuck to clothes and hair and even skin. They were ubiquitous throughout all inhabited spaces around the rockpile.
Ubiquitous they might be, but without power the localizers were harmless pieces of metallic glass. Now Anne’s people reprogrammed Hammerfest’s cable spines—and extended them into the newly dug caves beneath. Now, ten times a second, microwaves pulsed in every open space. The energy was far below biological-damage thresholds, so low that it didn’t interfere with the other utilities in place. The Qeng Ho localizers didn’t need much power, just enough to run their tiny sensors and communicate with their nearest neighbors. Ten Ksec after the microwave pulses were turned on, Ritser reported that the net had stabilized and was providing good data. Millions of processors, scattered across a diameter of four hundred meters. Each was scarcely more powerful than a Dawn Age computer. In principle, they were the most powerful computer net at L1.
In four days, Qiwi finished digging out the cave, and emplaced the wave servos. Her father was already brewing soil on the uplands. The water would come last, but it would come.
After the fact, Nau wondered how they had managed without the localizers all this time. Ritser Brughel had been absolutely correct. Before, their security had been all but blind in Hammerfest. Before, the Qeng Ho temp had in fact been a safer place for secure operations. Nau supervised Brughel and his snoops in a thorough, many-day sweep of all Hammerfest, and then of the starships and the warehouse cloud. He even broke with tradition and ran the localizers for 100Ksec in the L1-A arsenal vault. It was like shining a spotlight into dark places. They found and closed dozens of security lapses… and found not a single trace of subversion. Altogether, the experience was a wonderful confidence builder, as when you check for house parasites, find none, but also see where to put poison and barriers against future infestation.
And now, Tomas Nau had greater knowledge of his own domain than any Podmaster in Emergent history. Ritser’s snoops, using the localizers, could give Nau the location and emotional state—even cognitive state—of anyone in Hammerfest. After a time, he realized that there were experiments he should have undertaken long before.
Ezr Vinh. Maybe something more could be done with him. Nau studied the fellow’s biography again. At the next briefing, he was ready. This was Vinh’s standard meeting time. It was just the two of them, but by this time the Peddler was very used to the interaction. Vinh showed up at Nau’s office to discuss his summaries for the last ten days, the progress he was seeing with the ziphead groups in their understanding of the Spider world.
Tomas let the Peddler rattle on. He listened, nodded, asked the reasonable questions… and watched the analysis that spread across his huds.Lordy. The localizers in the air, on Vinh’s chair, even on his skin, reported to theInvisible Hand, where programs analyzed and sent the results back to Nau’s huds, painting Vinh’s skin with colors that showed galvanic response, skin temperature, perspiration. Standard graphics around the face showed pulse and other internals. An inset window showed what Vinh was seeing from his place across the desk, and mapped his every eye motion with red tracks. Two of Brughel’s snoops were allocated to this interview, and their analysis was a flowing legend across the top of Nau’s vision.Subject is relaxed to tenth percentile of normal interview level. Subject isconfident but wary, without sympathy for the Podmaster. Subject is not currently trying to suppress explicit thought.
It was more or less what Nau would have guessed, but with a wealth of added detail, better than the best instrumented soft interrogation, since it was invisible to the subject.
“So the strategic politics are much clearer now,” concluded Vinh, blissfully unaware of the dual nature of the interview. “Pedure and the Kindred have some real advantages in rocketry and nuclear weapons, but they’ve consistently lagged behind the Accord in computing and networks.”
Nau shrugged. “The Kindred are a strict dictatorship. Haven’t you told me that the Dawn Age tyrannies couldn’t cope with computer networks?”
“Yes.” Subject reacts, suppressing probable feeling of irony. “That’s part of it. We know they’re planning on a first strike sometime after the sun goes out, so that accounts for their overspending on weapons. And on the Accord side, Sherkaner Underhill is justso enthusiastic about automation that Pedure can’t keep up. Frankly, I think we’re headed for a crunch, Podmaster.” The subject is sincere in this statement. “Spider civilization only discovered the inverse square law a couple of generations ago; their mathematics lagged behind our Dawn Age accordingly. But the Kindred have made solid progress in rocketry. If they show one-tenth the curiosity of Sherkaner Underhill, they’re going to detect us in less than ten years.”
“Before we can completely control their networks?”
“Yes, sir.”
That’s what Jau Xin had been saying, reasoning off of his pilot zipheads. A pity. But at least the shape of the end of the Exile was becoming clear…. Meantime:
Subject’s guard is down. Nau smiled to himself. This was as good a time as any to shake up Manager Vinh.Who knows, maybe I can actually manipulate him. Either way, Vinh’s reaction would be interesting. Nau leaned back in his chair, pretended to gaze idly at the bonsai floating over his desk. “I’ve had years to study the Qeng Ho, Mr. Vinh. I’m not under false illusions. You people understand the different ways of civilization better than any sessile group.”
“Yes, sir.” Subject still calm, but the comment brings sincere agreement.
Nau cocked his head. “You’re in the Vinh line; if any in the Qeng Ho really understand things, it should be you. You see, one of my personal heroes has always been Pham Nuwen.”
“You’ve… mentioned that before.” The words were wooden. In Nau’s display, Vinh’s face was transformed by color, his pulse and perspiration spiking. Somewhere over on the
The diagnostic colors were shading toward normalcy, as was Vinh’s heart rate. His eye dilation and tracking were consistent with suppressed anger. Nau felt a fleeting incongruity; he would have read a tinge of fear in Vinh’s reaction.Maybe I have some things to learn from all this automation. And now he was frankly puzzled: “What’s the matter, Mr. Vinh? For once, let’s be frank.” He smiled. “I won’t tell Ritser, and you won’t gossip with Xin or Liao or… my Qiwi.”
The pulse of anger was very stark on that one, no disagreement there. The Peddler was hung up on Qiwi Lisolet, even if he couldn’t admit it to himself.
The signs of anger receded. Vinh licked his lips, a gesture that might have been nervousness. But the glyphs across the top of Nau’s huds said,Subject is curious. Vinh said, “It’s just that I don’t see the similarities between Pham Nuwen’s life and Emergent values. Sure, Pham Nuwen was not born a Peddler, but more than anyone he
