metre-high specimens, their rubbery bark and long tongue-shaped leaves a bright purple, clusters of bronze berries dangling from every branch.
Ione walked towards it down the amaranthus-lined path from the nearest of the campus’s five tube stations, three serjeant bodyguards in tow. Her hair was still slightly damp from her swim with Haile, and the ends brushed against the collar of her formal green-silk suit jacket. She drew wide-eyed stares and cautious smiles from the few project staff wandering around the campus.
Parker Higgens was waiting just outside the main entrance, dressed as ever in his hazel-coloured suit with red spirals on the flared arms. The trousers were fashionably baggy, but he was filling out the jacket quite comfortably. His mop of white hair hung down over his forehead in some disarray.
Ione forbade a smile as they shook hands. The director was always so nervous around her. He was good at his job, but they certainly didn’t share the same sense of humour. He would think teasing was a personal insult.
She greeted Oski Katsura, the head of the Electronics Division. She had taken over from the former head six months ago; her appointment had been the first Ione had confirmed. A seventy-year-old, taller than Ione, with a distinguished willowy beauty, wearing an ordinary white lab smock.
“You have some good news for me, then?” Ione asked as they went inside and started walking down the central corridor.
“Yes, ma’am,” Parker Higgens said.
“Most of the stack’s circuitry was composed of memory crystals,” Oski Katsura said. “The processors were subsidiary elements to facilitate access and recording. Basically it was a memory core.”
“I see. And had the ice preserved it like we hoped?” Ione asked. “It looked intact when I saw it.”
“Oh, yes. It was almost completely intact, the chips and crystals encased in ice functioned perfectly after they had been removed and cleaned. The reason it has taken us so long to decrypt the data stored in the crystals is that it is non-standard.” They came to a set of wide double doors, and Oski Katsura datavised a security code to open them, gesturing Ione through.
The Electronics Division always reminded her of a cyberfactory: rows of identical clean rooms illuminated by harsh white lighting, all of them filled with enigmatic blocks of equipment trailing wires and cables everywhere. This room was no different, broad benches ran round the walls, with another down the centre, cluttered with customized electronics cabinets and test rigs. The far end was a glass wall partitioning off six workshop cubicles. Several researchers were inside, using robot precision-assembly cells to fabricate various units. At the opposite end of the room to the cubicles a stainless steel pedestal sat on the floor, supporting a big sphere made up of tough transparent composite. Thick environmental-support hoses snaked away from the lower quarter of the sphere, plugging into bulky conditioning units. Ione saw the Laymil electronics stack in the middle of the sphere, with power leads and fibre-optic cables radiating out of its base. More surprisingly, Lieria was standing in front of the long bench in the middle of the room, her tractamorphic arms branching into five or six tentacles apiece, all of which were wound through an electronics cabinet.
Ione was quite proud she could recognize the Kiint immediately. Good morning, Lieria, I thought you worked in the Physiology Division.
The tentacle appendages uncoiled from the cabinet, flowing back into one solid pillar of flesh again. Lieria turned ponderously, careful not to knock into anything. Welcome, Ione Saldana. I am here because Oski Katsura requested my input in this programme. I have been able to contribute to the analysis of data stored in the Laymil crystals; there is some crossover into my primary field of study.
Excellent.
I note your cranial hair carries a residue of salt water; have you been swimming?
Yes, I gave Haile a scrub down. She’s getting impatient to look around Tranquillity. You’ll have to let me know when you think she’s ready.
Your kindness is most welcome. We judge her mature enough to be allowed outside parental restriction providing she is accompanied. But do not permit her to impose upon your own time.
She’s no bother.
One of Lieria’s arms lengthened to pick up a slender white wafer ten centimetres square from the bench. The unit emitted a single whistle, then spoke. “Greetings, Director Parker Higgens.”
He gave the xenoc a small bow.
Oski Katsura tapped the environment bubble with a fingernail. “We cleaned and tested all the components before we reassembled it,” she told Ione. “That ice wasn’t pure water, there were some peculiar hydrocarbons mixed in.”
“Laymil faecal matter,” Lieria said through the wafer.
“Quite. But the real challenge came from the data itself, it was like nothing we have found so far. It seemed almost totally randomized. At first we thought it might be some kind of artform, then we began to notice irregular trait repetition.”
The same patterns repeated in different combinations,tranquillity translated.
The science staff always go through this rigmarole, don’t they?she asked, half amused.
It is their chance to demonstrate to you, their paymaster, the effort they put in. Don’t disillusion them, it is impolite.
Ione kept her face neutral during the second-long exchange. “Which was enough to formulate a recognition program,” she said smoothly.
“Quite,” said Oski Katsura. “Ninety per cent of the data was garbage to us, but these patterns kept appearing.”
“Once we had enough of them clearly identified we held an interdisciplinary conference and asked for best guesses,” Parker Higgens said. “Bit of a long shot, but it paid off handsomely. I’m pleased to say Lieria said they resembled Laymil optical impulses.”
“Correct,” Lieria said through the wafer. “Similarity approaching eighty-five per cent. The data packages represented colours to a Laymil eye.”
“Once we’d established that, we ran a comparison on the rest of the data, trying to match it with other Laymil nerve impulses,” Oski Katsura said. “Jackpot. Well, more or less. It took four months to write interpretation programs and build suitable interface units, but we got there in the end.” A wave of her hand took in the benches and all their elaborate equipment. “We unravelled the first full sequence last night.”
Dawning realization at what Oski Katsura was actually saying brought a sense of real excitement to Ione. Her eyes were drawn to the stack in its protective bubble. She touched the transparent surface reverently, it was warmer than the ambient temperature. “This is a recording of a Laymil sensorium?” she asked.
Parker Higgens and Oski Katsura grinned like ten-year-olds.
“Yes, ma’am,” Parker Higgens said.
She turned to him sharply. “How much is there? How long does it go on for?”
Oski Katsura gave a modest shrug. “We don’t quite understand the file sequences yet. The one which we have translated so far lasts a little over three minutes.”
“How long?” Ione let a waspish note creep into her voice.
“If the bit rate holds constant for the other sequences . . . approximately eight thousand hours.”
Did she say eight
Yes,said tranquillity.
“Bloody hell!” An oafish smile appeared on Ione’s face.
“When you said translated, what did you mean?”
“The sequence has been adapted for human sensevise reception,” Oski Katsura said.
“Have you reviewed it?”
“Yes. The quality is below normal commercial standards, but that ought to improve once we refine our programs and equipment.”
“Can Tranquillity access your equipment through the communication net?” Ione asked urgently.
“It should be simple enough. One moment, I’ll datavise the entry code,” Oski Katsura said. “That’s it.”
Show me!
Senses which were fundamentally
