'Just like a punch card, huh? But it's not that easy. See, this program was assembled in a relatively simple language, and you've only got twenty-five cards here. That doesn't provide much room for a programmer's personal style to show up.'
'But it is possible to figure out who wrote a program?' Cristof asked.
'Theoretically. After a while, you get used to seeing other people's programming shortcuts, and we reuse parts of our old programs whenever we can,' Lars explained. 'So, given a long enough program, we could probably parse out the author, especially if it was someone we'd worked with before, like Alister. We've been dealing with his programming quirks for nearly a year now.'
'The problem is,' Kyle picked up the thread, 'Labyrinth Code was designed to avoid anything predictable, which includes any single programmer's preferences. And not only that, but if Emelie and Victor are right, this would be one of Alister's early jobs, before he developed most of the routines he uses now.'
'In other words, you don't know,' Cristof summarized. 'You could have just said that.'
The programmers looked at each other with a long-suffering air.
Taya reached out and touched one of the cards. For all she knew, there was a little bit of Alister in them. That made her feel better, thinking that his work would live on until his next rebirth.
'If you ran these twenty-five cards through an analytical engine, would they do anything?' Cristof pursued.
'No.' Kyle chuckled. 'That's your short answer. Your long answer is that feeding in a partial program would probably crash the engine. And that leads to another question, which is, which analytical engine would you try it on? People use ‘analytical engine’ pretty casually to refer to a lot of different calculating machines, but there are only five true analytical engines in Ondinium: the Great Engine, this University engine, the engine in the Bank of Ondinium, the engine in the Council building — and that one's old, hardly more than a difference engine — and the prototype down the hall. So it's not as though someone could walk up and start feeding cards into any one of them. Access is very restricted. And these cards, of course, can only be run on the Great Engine. They're too big for the others.'
'What about reading the cards themselves?' Cristof picked one up, looking blankly at its perforations. 'How many people in the city can do that?'
'Maybe twenty of us.'
'Are any of you twenty inclined to sell the Labyrinth Code to another nation?'
'And lose our job security? Not to mention our citizenship and eyesight? We remember what happened to Decatur Neuillan.' Lars shook his head. 'We're not idiots.'
'Besides, Cabiel's the only other country with advanced analytical engines, and they use a completely different assembly language,' Kyle added. 'There aren't any foreign nations that could run Labyrinth Code on their own engines.'
'But if a country like Alzana could use this code to sneak in and misprogram our Great Engine, it could do a lot of damage to us,' Cristof speculated.
The programmers looked at each other.
'You know, exalted, people call the Great Engine the ‘Heart of Ondinium,’ but it's really not that important to our day-to-day survival,' Lars said, politely. 'Slagging up some of the programs would be inconvenient, and it might cause us problems over the long run, but if Alzana really wants to cripple Ondinium, it just has to blow up our refineries or poison our water reservoirs. This little bit of code doesn't make a big difference in the grand scheme of themes.'
Cristof was undeterred. 'What about the Torn Cards? Could they use it?'
'The Torn Cards want to destroy the Great Engine,' Isobel said. 'They wouldn't do that with a program. If they ever got access to the Engine Room, they'd just drop a few bombs between the gears.'
'I see. Well, thank you.' Cristof began gathering the cards back up. 'If you think of anything that might help us figure out who… who killed my brother, would you please let me know? It would probably be fastest to send a message to Taya Icarus.'
'Just drop a line through Dispatch, or tell any icarus that you need to talk to me,' Taya said, nodding.
'We'll do that.' One by one the programmers shook her hand, then ducked quick bows to Cristof.
'What now?' Taya asked, as they walked back down the marble steps to the campus plaza again. The autumn wind whipped dry leaves across the walkway. 'Do you think the bomb was meant for Alister?'
'Now we know it's a possibility. But Caster's still the more likely target.'
'When can we investigate him?'
'Not tonight.' Cristof paused, taking off his glasses and wiping them on his coat front before putting them back on. 'Tomorrow I'll visit Viera.'
'Can I come?'
He looked at her, clearly not enchanted by the idea.
'I want to,' Taya insisted. 'It would be rude if I didn't offer my condolences.'
'Oh, all right,' he said gracelessly.
'Thank you.' Taya took the lead this time, heading for the University flight dock. 'When are you going to see her?'
'No earlier than noon. You won't have any problem getting off work?'
'Not if I tell them I'm working for an exalted. Everyone will be on search and rescue, anyway, so schedules are going to be flexible.' She sighed, thinking again of the wreckage in the mountains. 'I'll meet you at noon. Where?'
'In front of her estate.'
'All right.' She reached the dock, a metal tower that rose over the rooftops of the University buildings.
'Fly safely.'
'I will.' She swung herself up onto the rung ladder and began to climb, turning her face toward the moon.
Chapter Ten
When she arrived at Estate Octavus the next day, Taya removed her armature in the foyer and left it with the servants. A few minutes later she was glad she had, because Viera turned from embracing Cristof to throw her arms around Taya's shoulders.
'I'm glad you came,' the exalted said, fiercely.
'I'm so sorry.' Taya hugged her back, surprised but flattered. 'How's Ariq?'
'He's quiet. I'm afraid he's just starting to understand what this means.' Viera stepped back, smoothing the front of her layered robes. Her strong features looked haggard. 'Do you know who did it yet?'
'No, but we're looking into it,' Cristof said. 'I'll have some answers soon, I promise.'
'Do they—' Viera stopped. 'Who was the target? Alister or Caster? Do they know?'
'Not yet.' Cristof took her arm and led her to a chair. Both he and Taya sat as soon as Viera was settled. 'I've found one or two reasons why someone might want to kill Alister, but it's still possible that Caster was the target, or that this was just a random act of terrorism. It's too soon to tell.'
Viera nodded, folding her hands in her lap.
'Would you be willing to answer some questions?' Cristof studied her. 'I realize it's difficult to talk about, but—'
'Of course I will,' Viera replied, cutting him off. 'I spent all night trying to figure out why someone would want to kill my husband. The only thing I can think of is that it must have been Council business. Something political and dangerous.'
'What was Caster working on? Did he have any important votes coming up? I know votes are confidential….'
'He told me a lot about his work. Maybe more than he should have, but he liked to ask my advice.' Viera
