Robert Morris, back on the H.M.S. Third Eye,
has been working hard on the encrypted high bandwidth transmissions.
He has now managed to synch up with the data, and worked out the continually
shifting protocols. If he hadn't hacked those hiver
computers, he wouldn't have stood a chance -- as it is, his experience
with the alien systems has provided the break he needed to get a handle
on this stuff. It's very strange, very odd -- definitely not something
to have come out of some hot-shot Imperial
programmer (or hot-shot hiver, for that matter).
He also picked up a slight unexpected glitch of
interference in the transmission to the relay unit. He investigates,
and it turns out to be interference from another signal. Someone
was sending a high power tight beam short transmission from the city of
Center, upwards. A little bounce back interfered with the multiple
frequencies Robert is using for reliable communications with the away team
in Cormor Forest. This is definitely not a natural occurrence --
it's a transmission deliberately aimed at space. Unfortunately the
transmission was very short, and he can't get anything more about it or
locate it any closer than somewhere in Center. There is no way to
tell where the transmission was aimed, other than it was clearly somewhere
in the system, not on this
planet. He continues to work on all these interesting enigmas.
Back in the forest home, Marquis Marcus Crestworthy
calls Mich Saginaw around mid-morning. He confirms that Mich will
be finished with building the generator units today. He then suggests
to Misha that they should depart tomorrow evening -- or even tonight, if
possible. He requests his First Officer to make sure that everything
can be ready to leave.
The Marquis then turns to their Jann guide.
"Lap'da, do you have any interest in travel off planet?"
"No."
"Travel to Center?"
"No."
Helia Sarina asks, "Learn how to fly a ship?"
"No."
Sagan comments, "Why should he want to learn to
leave the planet on a ship when he can do so on his own?"
The day continues. Marc continues reading his
psionic
texts, and monitoring the football sensor (which still detects nothing).
Misha continues to feel uneasy, like they're missing something, but he
can't figure out what. Ed "Shark" Teeth goes back over the living
quarters again looking for bugs, and is certain that the area is still
clean.
Lunchtime arrives and there is still no contact
from the Sheriff. Some of the group are getting a little itchy to
leave -- this waiting in such an uncertain situation is starting to get
on their nerves.
Sagan asks Lap'da how many Janns are on this world,
but like others before hir, sie can't get a useful answer. Sie does
find out that there are some on this world that are over 1 year old, but
Lap'da says he doesn't know how many. Misha and Helia do manage to
pry out of Lap'da that there are children among the Janns.
Helia observes, "So we could have children..."
Misha tries to find out about the lifespan of the
Janns, but again can't get much of an answer. "Do you have regular
meetings with other Jann?"
"No," replies Lap'da.
"Your father, how long did he live? How old
was he when he died?"
"I'm not sure, he hasn't told me."
"Is your father still alive?"
"Yes."
"So he hasn't told you his age? Or he hasn't
told you how old he'll be when he dies?"
"He has not told me how old he will be when he dies."
"Do you know his current age?"
"What... age?" asks Lap'da, slowly.
"The difference between the year he was born and
the year we currently stand in."
"Oh," says Lap'da brightly. "Yes! About
a thousand years. He was born about two hundred years after my grandparents
got here."
After a while, Marquis Marc asks, "Did your people
bring the forest with them?"
"No," replies Lap'da.
"Until the most recent stuff here, were there always
nine forests?"
"Yes."
"Do any of the Jann leave the planet? Have
any of the Jann left the planet in the past few hundred years?"
"No."
"Do you know what planet you originally came from?
Is that in your histories?"
"Yes."
"What can you tell me about that?" Marquis
Marc triggers his recorder.
"It was probably much like yours."
"Is there a name?"
"There is a name but I don't think it would mean
anything to you."
"You'd be amazed at what is passed down through
legend and survives. Could you say it please?"
"No, I think not."
Now human
written history certainly goes back through the Vilani
empire, and there are hints about the Ancients,
but the Jann claim to go back to the days of the Final War which destroyed
the Ancients' civilization, or shortly thereafter. What is more,
according to Lap'da none of the Jann have left this planet since well before
the rise of homo sapiens.
Mich has been working on the new power units.
They are all complete before dinner, but unfortunately not soon enough
to catch the train back to Center today. He has eight units; all
have been checked out, not just in normal operation but under varying circumstances
such as load conditions, various levels of fuel impurities, and so on.
Sagan points out that they don't actually have to
wait for the train -- Lap'da could take them. On the other hand,
while they could leave, Mich has enough equipment that they would have
to abandon some very desirable stuff. The most critical items, though,
are the data files -- which have already been uploaded to the Third
Eye's computers.
Misha would prefer not to leave yet anyway -- he
wants to talk with the Sheriff and try to figure out some of the motivations
and loose ends.
Still, everything can be packed up ready to go.
Mich was planning to talk to Jane Southcombe to see if there was anything
he could help with, or anything more he could find out perhaps. Jane,
however, is not available -- she did say she was just doing some routine
tasks.
Misha puts the question to the Marquis. It's
up to him to balance the risk factors. Should they walk back to the
ship with Lap'da tonight, or take the train tomorrow?
Marquis Marc asks Lap'da how many days walk it is
back to the ship -- and of course he says "Some."
Helia tries to pin Lap'da down further. She
asks, "OK, if we walk very focussed, do you think we can make it to the
ship by dawn?"
"No," replies Lap'da firmly.
"OK, Do you think we can make the ship by noon?"
"No."
"If we started now, what do you think would be the
fastest we could get to the ship?"
"I don't know."
"Could we make it by tomorrow dinnertime?"
"I don't know."
Helia turns to Marc. "That's the best answer
we're going to get," she says.
Sagan says, "This again assumes that the ship does
not move."
Helia doesn't really want Vonish Kehnaan to have
to handle the atmospheric flight from First City. She again turns
to their guide, "Lap'da, can the Jann bring the ship to us here without
damaging the forest?"
"Yes."
"Tonight? Now?"
"No."
Marc thinks it would be too visible a proposition.
He discusses the matter briefly with Misha, and comes to the conclusion
that they should probably just wait until tomorrow and take the train.
They all settle down to spend the night.
Helia says, "We've been missing something all along.
We missed it again."
Misha says, "About being sent out of the way: the
point of that was that while he did send us out of the way in the sense
that we were a thousand kilometers from where Mich was, we were not a thousand
kilometers in days from where he was. He implied that he did that
on purpose."
"Yeah, we still missed something."
"There's clearly something going on that we don't
understand. He doesn't really want to share it with us in an obvious
way. Very Lap'da-ish!" Misha laughs.
Marquis Marc looks at Lap'da. "You have taught
him well," he says.
Lap'da says, "I have taught him some things.
I did not teach him what he is doing now."
Helia asks, "What is he doing now?"
"What do you think he is doing now?"
"Hiding something."
"What do you think he's hiding?"
"I don't know, but I don't like it. Do you
know what he's hiding?"
Marc says, "Hiding what he gained from us."
Lap'da answers Helia's question, "I don't know."
Marc adds, "Obviously he didn't gain the obvious."
Misha says, "He's playing some kind of game with
someone else on planet, and we're just some kind of pawns in the game."
Helia says, "That's what it feels like."
Marc says, "I'm hoping it's only on planet."
Misha says, "Why does it matter whether it's on
planet or not?"
Helia answers, "Because we have to go off planet,
and if there's somebody that he's in contact with off planet, it might
be bad for us."
"Well, you know Lap'da vouches for the Sheriff,
at least in terms of his honesty. The Sheriff wouldn't do something
to harm us, that's what Lap'da says. I'm inclined to believe that."
"But the Sheriff might not do something that would
prevent harm. He may not step in the way of someone who meant us
harm."
Misha says to Lap'da, "I sense from you that you're
not entirely happy with the Sheriff's current game, whatever that game
happens to be."
Lap'da asks, "His game?"
"His game, his current activities, obviously he's
not being -- completely forthright. He's -- his current actions..."
"I believe he's doing what he thinks is best."
"OK. I'm willing to accept that. Lap'da,
this is a decision we must make as a group. We must decide whether
to leave planet and go on to bigger and better things, or stay here and
investigate."
"The Sheriff does not intend to bring you harm."
Marquis Marc asks him, "Do you know of anyone on
planet who does?"
"I don't know."
"Do you know of anyone off planet who does?"
"I don't know."
Misha says, "Well, I wondered if you have any advice
on this question?"
"I don't think you will come to harm on planet."
"That's not the question. The question is
whether it would be a good thing to stay and investigate this little mystery,
or just to move on and let the Sheriff continue his game in peace."
"That depends."
"On what?"
"Do you think you can finally get what game it is?"
"I have no idea. But we'll never know if we
never try."
Lap'da says quietly, "Perhaps you're stuck with
rock - paper - scissors, and he has a flower."
"Perhaps."
"Do not play the game if you do not think you can
play it."
Marc adds, "Don't play the game if there's more
to lose than there is to win."
"But have you already won?"
Misha says, "We're ahead on the game, that's why
I'm willing to continue playing."
Marc says, "I'm playing a conservative game.
At this time, with the information at hand, I don't think there's much
to be gained by staying. Now as we travel, as more information becomes
available, once we return to the ship me may decide to change our minds."
Lap'da says, "Most people who ask a question already
know the answer."
Helia says, "That's a very human thing. We
like to have our thoughts affirmed."
There seems nothing more to be gained. They arrange for their baggage to be on the train, while everyone will take their own personal luggage. The Marquis calls the Steward and asks when the train will leave tonight. He plans that they will be there an hour ahead of time.
Misha wants to go for one last walk in the woods. Mich joins him -- he's not had much of a chance to wander in the forest. Helia also goes along, to stretch her wings and fly for a while before getting back on the ship. The two humans take a gentle walk, half an hour to the east -- away from the commercial section -- and return safely. The lirian flies up towards the canopy of the forest, and enjoys herself relaxing and flying around in the fresh air; she keeps the lights from the guest tower in sight, and of course that makes it certain she does not get lost.
After the walk, everyone moves over to the station. They embark-- they are the only passengers on the train this time -- and their luggage is loaded into the baggage section. The bartender is the same person they had on the way out here, although he's done other runs in the meantime and hasn't just been doing this one train.
The trip back from Cormor Forest is uneventful.
Marquis Marc continues to read, while the others talk and occupy themselves
as they can. They try without success to spot the location of the
old train wreck, but it's night as they go by and they don't see anything.
They do, however, get a good view of the Great Gap as they pass over it
to the southern continent in the afternoon.
The train arrives back in Center right on time,
in the evening. There are a couple of limousines and a van waiting
for them, and they are driven direct from the station to the yacht club
at First City. From there, they are chauffeured by boat back to the
Third Eye. The Marquis tips well, in Imperial credits.
All are relieved and pleased to be back on board their ship.
Mich and Shark go through the baggage carefully -- Mich makes sure everything they packed is actually there, while Shark makes sure there's nothing there that they didn't pack. All checks out fine.
Robert reports to the Marquis and Misha. He
tells them that there's technology in use on this planet that is much higher
than it appears, and that there's extremely high data rate communication
lines between Center and Cormor Forest. He's been wading through
the content, but isn't sure exactly what's going on with it. There
was some highly encrypted content that stopped about the time they left
the forest. At one point -- about the time that they would have arrived
back at the settlement -- there was a high energy transmission from Center
off-world. There have been no transmissions picked up from the rest
of the system. Robert didn't want to tell them about this until they
were in a secure location.
The Marquis says to Misha, "This is some of that
additional information we might be gathering. Does this change what
you want to do?"
Misha replies, "It intrigues me, but..."
Robert adds, "We have some of the encrypted conversations
recorded and we're working on deciphering them."
Marquis Marc says, "How long do you think it will
take?"
"Maybe about two days. It depends."
Marc asks if there's anyone who can help Robert
with it. Helia is good at maths, Ed is good at... who knows what
Ed is good at?
"I have the encryption broken, it's more the ideograms
than..."
"So it's language skills?"
"Yes. I'll take anyone's help."
Marc asks, "When you say high technology, is it
beyond Imperium technology, or...? Because these guys are TL5 with
some TL7 computer stuff, and some missile launchers they claim."
"It's beyond that," Robert laughs. "It's edges
of the fringe of Imperium. What I'm seeing I could believe is in
some Imperial lab somewhere and could see the light of day in maybe five
years. But this is out of place for this location. It's a different
direction from Imperial technology but it is achievable in the near future."
"Would the technology necessary to implement this
be the sort of technology a person would carry around with them concealed?
Could you build that technology into a concealed device, with what you
have now on the ship?"
"No."
"OK, so it is either a large installation, or it's advanced
technology."
Robert supports the large installation theory --
it's main line communication between two points. He has a lot of
individual conversation data, but there were many before he started recording.
He just happened upon it because he noticed that there was some low bandwidth
data transmission that looked rather odd, and he noticed it was a carrier
for extremely high bandwidth communications. He promises to let Marc
know if it resumes.
The Marquis calls Mich to find out how quickly they
could leave if they wanted -- Mich tells him about two hours to get everything
checked out and warmed up.
Misha's opinion is that besides satisfying curiosity,
it doesn't seem that there's much benefit to spending more time on this.
He asks Robert if he could trace this end of the communications.
Robert notes that the recipient of the high bandwidth
transmissions could be tapping into it the same way they are, in which
case they can't locate them, but that they can trace the destination of
the continuing low bandwidth stuff.
The Marquis observes that there is definitely a
ship in space -- another player off planet -- and at least one more ship
on planet.
Misha wonders if the transmission off-planet could
have contained the plans to the energy amplifier device. Robert says
that it was far too short for that. It could not have been the plans
that were transmitted. Also, the interference from that one transmission
can't be located any more accurately than to say it originated in Center.
Marc says that the problem with looking for someone
who doesn't necessarily want to be found, is that if you find them, they
might shoot -- and his ship is not really equipped to shoot back.
So while they can look to see if they can find anyone on their way out,
chasing after another ship is not really an option.
Misha asks about tracing the transmissions -- he
says he can get physical access to the location once Robert tells him where
it is.
Robert says that he thinks his time would be best
spent deciphering the content of the transmission first, to see whether
it's anything that might be worth investigating. It might be something
totally innocent.
The Marquis decides that they will stay here another
two days to see if they can determine anything else. That would mean
leaving on 138 / 800 local date, 112-1120 Imperial.
Vonish, who has some language skill, will help Robert;
Sagan also offers the possibility of adapting the hiver translator algorithms
for use in understanding the ideograms.