there is to ... well, any sufficiently alien technology is indistinguishable from magic, so let's call it that, all right? You can do magic by computation, but you can also do computation by magic. The law of similarity attracts unwelcome attention from other proximate universes, other domains where the laws of nature worked out differently. Meanwhile, the law of contagion spreads stuff around. Just as it's possible to write a TCP/IP protocol stack in some utterly inappropriate programming language like ML or Visual Basic, so, too, it's possible to implement TCP/IP over carrier pigeons, or paper tape, or daemons summoned from the vasty deep.
Eileen Billington's intelligence-gathering back end relies on a classic contagion network. The dirty little secret of the intelligence-gathering job is that information doesn't just want to be free — it wants to hang out on street corners wearing gang colors and terrorizing the neighbors. When you apply a contagion field to any kind of information storage system, you make it possible to suck the data out via any other point in the contagion field. Eileen is already running a contagion field — it's the root of her surveillance system.
I've got a PC on my desk that isn't connected to the ship's network, but I've just stuffed a clone of its brain into a machine that is on that network — so all I need to do is contaminate my own box with Pale Grace(TM), and then ...
Well, it's not as easy as all that. In fact, at first I'm shitscared that I've broken the TV (I'm pretty sure the warranty specifically excludes damage due to the USB ports being full of mascara) but then I figure out a better way. Tracing the Fallworth graph on the bathroom mirror backwards with a Bluetooth pen hooked into the television is not the recommended way of establishing a similarity link with a network you're trying to break into — it's not even the second worst way of doing so — but it just happens to be the only one I've got available to me, so I use it. Once I've brought up the virtual interface I poke around until I find the VPN port that the USB dongle I planted in Eileen's server farm is running.
The keystroke logger is happily snarfing login accounts, and I figure out pretty rapidly that Eileen's INFOSEC people aren't paranoid enough — they figure that for systems aboard a goddamn destroyer, who needs to go to the bother of biometrics or a challenge/response system like S/Key? They want something they can get into fast and reliably, so they're using passwords, and my dongle's captured six different accounts already. I rub my knuckles and go poking around the server farm to see what they're doing with it. Give me a bottle of Mountain Dew, an MP3 player hammering out something by VNV Nation, and a ctate of Pringles: that's like being at home. Give me root access on a hostile necromancer's server farm, and I am at home.
Still, I'm worried about Mo. That view Eileen wanted me to vet — even if Eileen bought my story — means that Mo is here, on the island, and she's under the gun. The Pale' Grace(TM) surveillance net is tracking her and the stabbing sense of anxiety that doubles as my guilty conscience tells me I need to make sure she's all right before I start trying to figure out a way to reestablish communications with Control.
So I pull up a VNC session, log into one of Eileen's server blades using a password looted from one of the black berets, and go hunting for a chase cam.
13: FIDDLER HITS THE ROOF
TEN HOURS ABOARD AN AIRBUS IS NEVER A HAPPY fun experience, even in business class. By the time Mo feels the nose gear touch down on the centerline of the runway, rattling the glasses up front in the galley, she's tired, with a bone-weary exhaustion that is only going to go away if she can find the time to crash for twelve straight hours on an oversprung hotel mattress.
But. But. Mo hums tunelessly to herself as the airbus taxis towards the terminal. What's he gotten himself into this time?
she asks herself, a bright point of worry burning through the blanket of fatigue. Angleton wasn't remotely reassuring, and after that disturbing interview with Alan she went and did some digging. Asked Milton, actually, the one-armed, old security sergeant with the keys to the conservatory and the instrument store. 'What's a big white one?' she repeated, refusing to take the first answer he offered — or to notice the prickling in her ears and the flush of blood to her cheeks until he set her straight.
Fuck. Nukes? What the wily old bastard had been offering Alan — right under her nose! — was a kamikaze insurance policy. The realization fills her with even more apprehension.
Bob's got himself into something so dicey that Angleton thinks a destroyer full of SAS and SBS special forces isn't enough, and they may need to call in a Trident D-5 ballistic missile to nail whatever's been stirred up down there. That kind of overkill isn't on the menu, outside of a bad spy thriller: that or CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, anyway, and CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN hasn't started yet, and even then the real nasties probably won't arrive until at least ten years after the grand alignment commences.[12 They tend to oversleep.] As soon as the seatbelt sign blinks off and the cabin crew announces that it's safe for passengers to leave their seats, Mo is up like a jack- in-the-box to haul down her overnight bag, wide-brimmed hat, and the battered violin case from the overhead locker. She clutches the instrument case protectively all the way to the baggage claim area and immigration queue, as if she's walking through a dangerous part of town and it's a gun. But when the customs officer gives her the hairy eyeball and asks her to open it she smiles brightly and clicks back the locks to reveal — a violin.
'See?' she says. 'It's an Erich Zahn special, wired with Hilbert-space pickups. I don't think there's another one on this side of the Atlantic.' She's relying on his ignorance to let her through. Polished to the creamy gleam of old ivory, the electric violin nestles in its case like a Tommy gun, to all outward appearances nothing but a musical instrument. Just ** don't ask me to play it, she prays. The custom officer nods, satisfied it's not an offensive weapon, and waves her on. Mo closes the case with false calm, nods her head, and locks the instrument back in. If only you knew ...
One airport concourse is much like any other. Mo tows her suitcase over to the exit, where taxis jostle for position opposite the curb. It smells hot and damp with a faint undertone of rotting seaweed. There are people everywhere, tourists in bright clothes, natives, business types. A woman in a suit brandishes a clipboard at her: 'Hi! How would you like a free sample of eyeliner, ma'am'
Why the hell not? Mo nods and accepts the sample, smiles, idly rubs a smear of it on her wrist to check the color, and moves on before the woman can deliver her sales spiel. Okay, the hotel next. That'll do. As she walks through the door the Saint Martin climate clamps down on her like a warm, wet blanket, coating her in sweat. Abruptly, she's grateful for the hat and the sundress Wardrobe Department insisted she wear. It's not her style at all, but her usual jeans and blouse would be ... Hell, call me the Wicked Witch of the West and have done with it. She fans herself with the hat as she walks over to the taxi queue. What a mess.
'Where to, ma'am?' asks the taxi driver. He's pegged her for a tourist, probably American; he doesn't bother to get out and help her with the suitcase.
'Maho Beach Hotel, if you don't mind.' She glances at him in the mirror: he's got crow's-feet around prematurely aged eyes, hair the color of damp newsprint.
'Okay. Twenty euros.'
'Got it.'
He starts the engine. Mo leans back and closes her eyes.
She doesn't let her fingers stray from the violin case, but to a casual onlooker she could be snoozing off a case of jet lag. In fact, when she's not keeping a surreptitious eye open for tails, she's working her way down a checklist she's already committed to memory. Let's see. Check in, phone home for a Sitrep, confirm Alan's on site, then ... a guilty frisson: off the roadmap.
Find Bob. If necessary, find this Ramona person. Make sure Bob's safe. Then figure out how to get him disentangled before it sucks him in too deep ...
Anxiety keeps her awake every meter of the way to the hotel drags her tired ass to the front desk for checkin: 'Mrs. Hudson? Your husband checked in this morning. He said you'd be arriving and to leave you a key to your suite.' The receptionist smiles mechanically. 'Have a nice stay!'
Husband? Mo blinks and nods, making thankful sounds on autopilot. 'Which room is he in?'
'You're in 412. Elevators are left past the fountain.'
She rides the elevator upstairs in thoughtful silence.
Husband? It's not Bob. He wouldn't pull a stunt like this without forewarning her. And it's a suite: Laundry
