onto the distillery. The highlighted pieces would be the bits the computer had decided probably belonged to the crystal matrix. She ran her fingers along the sensitive edges of the shadowscreen, shrinking that image and opening a new window above it, then began painstakingly to transfer the highlighted pieces from the original image to the window. They hung there as though suspended in space, strange three-dimensional shapes that showed odd rifts and fracture lines.
“I don’t think that’s all of it,” Santerese said.
Heikki looked up, startled—she had not seen Santerese leave her console to come and lean over her shoulder— but looked at the screen again. She had already moved more than half of the highlighted pieces to the working window, and even allowing for the remainder, there was not enough to make up a complete matrix. “I agree,” she said quietly.
“Do you want me to run the program again on what’s left?” Santerese asked, and Heikki shrugged.
“You might as well. I don’t know if it will do any good, though.”
Santerese nodded, and returned to her machine. Frowning, Heikki finished removing the last highlighted images from the lower screen, then ran her hand along the edge of the shadowscreen to shrink the image even further. The pieces isolated in the upper window swelled until they almost filled her screen.
Those fragments weren’t enough to make up a complete matrix, that much was obvious. Heikki studied them for a moment longer, head tilted to one side, then ran her hands across the shadowscreen again, shifting the pieces. Several of the larger shards looked as though they would fit together, and she ran her hand across the shadowscreen, lifting and rotating them until the broken edges meshed and melded. It was a start, she knew, but resisted the temptation to do more. Instead, she called up the first of the reconstruction programs, and let it work while she waited for Santerese to finish the second survey. As she had expected, it displayed “inconclusive” across its tiny window, and when she touched the override, produced a vaguely dodecahedral shape. Most of the lines flashed blue, indicating serious uncertainty. Heikki shrugged, and banished the program.
“How’s it coming, Marshallin?”
“Almost done,” Santerese answered. “The probability is lower, though, by about ten percent. You’ll want to bear that in mind.”
Heikki nodded. A few moments later, her screen flickered, and Santerese said, “I’m flipping you the new figures.”
“Thanks,” Heikki said. “Ready to receive.”
The image at the bottom of her screen disappeared, and was replaced a moment later by another, this one larger, with a rather sparse collection of highlighted images spread across the lower part of the window. They were concentrated in the center, where the debris field had been deepest, about what Heikki had expected. She nodded to herself and began transferring those images to the larger working screen.
When she had finished, the fragments looked somewhat more promising than they had, almost, she thought, as though there might be enough for the computer to work from. She triggered the construction program again, and this time the machine went to work without immediate complaint. After a few moments, a shape—still dodecahedral, but more clearly faceted, more recognizably something functional—appeared in the working window. A moment later, a second image, a crude cross section, with more lines flashing uncertain blue, appeared beside it, and then a third, this one a rotation of the first.
“Analysis?” Heikki said aloud.
The program considered for a moment, then responded, Function unclear. No recorded parallels of statistical significance.
Heikki had not expected anything else. She sighed, and leaned across the console to fit a disk into the room’s recording system.
“No luck?” Santerese asked, and pushed herself up from her console.
“Nothing conclusive,” Heikki answered, shrugging. “It’s handwork from here on in.”
Santerese grinned, and brought her chair around so that she could sit beside her partner. “I’ve seen worse.”
Heikki nodded, still staring at the screen. This was the trickiest part of any reconstruction, especially when they had only the tapes to go on, not actual samples of the debris. The reconstruction and restoration programs had taken things as far as they could; now she and Santerese would have to evaluate the machine’s work, and use their informed judgement to add to the computer’s construct. “Switch on the recorder, will you?” she said aloud, and Santerese did so. “Report—” She glanced at the string of characters that appeared at the bottom of the workscreen, labeling the work by date and time and session number. “—229.1631.2, Gwynne Heikki and Marshallin Santerese, for Heikki/Santerese Salvage, private report. Data is drawn from tapes 214.1426.a, 214.1426.b, and 214.1426.c, taken under contract to Lo-Moth, of and on Iadara. Data has been processed using Loppi Standard Analysis, and modified Forian Reconstruction and Restoration programs. We are now proceeding under the assumption that the recovered fragments were part of a crystal matrix, deliberately destroyed by hijackers.” She nodded to Santerese, who adjusted the recorder’s setting.
“This machine is now set for sound-activated recording,” Santerese said, “and for realtime recording of all on-screen and in-memory activity.”
Heikki nodded again. “Then let’s begin.”
It took them another four hours of slow, painstaking work to finish reconstructing the crystal. At last, however, Heikki leaned back in her chair, stretching, and said slowly, “I think that’s all I dare do. I can’t really justify adding anything more.”
Santerese glanced at the secondary screen, which displayed schematics for half a dozen different types of standard crystal. “It’s pretty obvious what it was, doll. That was a matrix.”
Heikki nodded her agreement, and reached across her partner to touch a button on the recorder cabinet. “Work is completed on report 229.1631.2. This recording ends.” She flipped off the recorder, and said, more normally, “And that proves it wasn’t an ordinary hijacking.”
“Not that you ever thought it was,” Santerese murmured.
“Well, what hijacker in his right mind would destroy the thing he came to steal?” Heikki asked, and pushed herself up out of her chair. She was stiff from the hours of work, she realized belatedly, and winced as she moved to the door. “Max?”
The commissioner had been asleep, sprawled on the couch, his feet propped up on the monitor box, but he opened his eyes at the sound of his name, contriving to look instantly aware. “Yes?”
“We’ve finished the report,” Heikki said. “I’d like you to see the results, and seal the disks.” She looked around the room. “Where’s Galler?”
Max pointed down the hall toward the bedrooms. “Asleep, I expect. I’ll take a look at your disks.”
Trust Galler to have settled in comfortably, Heikki thought, but there was less malice in the thought than there would have been before. That was not an entirely comfortable realization, and she put it aside, saying, “We’re almost certain it was a matrix—”
“Almost?” Max cut in, and Heikki gave a reluctant smile.
“I’m certain. The almost is there for the courts and the statistics.”
“Good enough,” Max said. He maneuvered his bulk past the banks of machines to perch cautiously on Heikki’s chair. “Show me.”
Obediently, Santerese triggered the media wall, throwing the final projection onto its central field. “This is the complete reconstruction,” she said. “We made a full recording of all procedures used, of course, but this is what we got.”
Max stared at the slowly rotating crystal, his face without expression. It didn’t look like much, Heikki admitted to herself, just a rough cube, its corners sawn off to create smaller planes, and those corners sawn off as well, creating smaller and smaller facets. She leaned past Max to touch keys on the nearest workboard, throwing a second, similar image onto the wall beside the reconstruction.
“That’s a simulated core crystal from a class-5 freighter—just a sample of the approximate form, not a real one.” She touched keys again, and produced a third image. “This is a schematic of the type of crystal used in the Exchange Points’ PDEs.”
“All right,” Max said again, “they’re obviously very similar. What did Lo-Moth tell you this one was, again?”
“A matrix for a possible universal center crystal seed,” Heikki answered.
