“Elevators aren’t alarmed?”
“Don't know,” Gandalf replied. “Same problem as with the inter-shell rail system: we can’t tell where the signals go. But the stairs don't have door sensors.”
I grunted, but otherwise didn't respond. It wasn't me climbing the stairs after all.
This part of the operation turned out to be fairly tedious, like trekking through a dungeon that was all corridor. Of course, something could always jump out of a hidden alcove, which made for a strange combination of stress and boredom. We passed doors to several other levels on the way up, but finally all the drones were at the top of the stairs. As Gandalf described it, the door opened into the foyer of the transit station on the inside surface of the megastructure. In better times, this was where the inhabitants would have come to travel to the outer shell, and then outside the topopolis. There was some indication in the scans that this was also a transit stop for some kind of internal transit system. Unfortunately, there were only so many milliseconds in a day, and that investigation had been back-burnered.
“So, here's where it gets complicated,” Gandalf said.
“And what we been doing up ‘till now?” I asked.
“Two problems.” Gandalf brought up some subsidiary windows to illustrate. “First, the foyer has cameras. Second, there are sensors on the external doors. Third, if management wanted to keep the natives out of the station, this is where the security would be concentrated, both inside and outside. So, we can't use the front door.”
“I assume you have an alternative?”
He grinned at me. “Big bucks, remember? We’re going to tunnel out.”
“Tunnel? Like the Great Escape?”
“Well, it's not like we haven't been cutting into things right and left, and the Snarks use that weird ceramic carbon fiber material everywhere that we’d use concrete on Earth. Which works out for us, since it yields to a plasma cutter with very little argument.”
“So after all this high-tech spy stuff, we're going to dig our way out like rats.”
“You gotta know when to go low-tech, Bob.” Garfield pulled up a schematic of the station and pointed to a spot. “Here. This will come out just under ground level, so we can cover it up once we’re through.”
“Outside surveillance?”
“That's not a problem. There are cameras covering the entrance, but not so much the back and sides.”
“Then let's do this.”
Cutting through the wall then digging up to ground level was tedious but mostly uneventful. We surprised a representative of the local wildlife when the roamer popped out of the ground. The animal - some kind of deer analog I think - jumped straight back about 10 feet, then bounded away with a panicked bleating.
“Time to start spying,” Gandalf said.
He sent a command to the drones and several of them popped open their cargo doors. Out came little spy drones: a combination of tech from my spying on the Deltans and Jacques spying on the Pav. Improvements in technology, including but not limited to the Casimir power sources, meant that the modern version of the spy drone was no bigger than a sparrow. Add in the camouflage system, and we were confident we'd avoid discovery by the natives. These drones would, among other tasks, try to supplement the Skippies’ scans with some good old-fashioned eavesdropping.
Discovery by the mysterious to populace controller was another thing to consider. Is was safe bet that the habitat included surveillance of some kind, if only to watch for maintenance issues. Add to that the fact that the natives were actively kept to a largely pre-industrial level, which could necessitate some kind of surveillance system anyway. How the technology limits would be enforced was an important question. We didn’t accidentally want to get caught in a purge of some kind.
“Spy drones are on their way,” Garfield commented. “Now we wait.”
12. Expedition Prep
Bob
November 2333
Outskirts, Eta Leporos
The spy drones had multiple duties, so they'd be busy for a while. In addition to finding a way to eavesdrop on the Snarks and learn their language, the drones would be doing biological surveys, and surveys of the towns and infrastructure. The drones had been given a search algorithm by the Skippies, which according to them would help to gather the required raw data in a more efficient manner. I didn't necessarily distrust them, but I'd nevertheless rigged a hardware monitor into the drones. It would be completely undetectable unless you knew the access protocols and keys. Bill’s paranoia seemed to have colored my experiences with the Bobiverse in general.
There was plenty to do, meanwhile. We had enough basic info to start on fabricating an alpha version of the Snark Mannies. Details could be filled in once the Skippies finished their biological survey. And there was still the question of getting Bridget involved, at least for consulting on the Snark biology.
I was working on the Manny design when I ping from Bridget. She and I didn't hang around together, so this was unlikely to be just out of the blue. I suspected someone might have said something to someone. I sent an accept, and a moment later she popped in.
Bridget spent a few mils looking around my library. “I very much approve. Howard had a library motif for a while, but never this many books. Are they real?”
“All of them, right down to content,” I said. “I've raided every human database I can find. BobNet contains the sum of human and Pav written knowledge.”
“It's great to have a hobby.” Bridget hesitated, then launched right into what she was really here for. “Bob I'd like a position on the Snark exploration op, when it's ready.”
“Okay.”
“I mean, I'm a biologist, and I've lots of experi- wait, what?”
I grinned at her. “Honestly, I was trying to figure out how to
